


Bluebells

by CinderAsh



Series: Bluebells AU [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Assorted other humans and faeries okay, Child Abuse, F/F, Faerie!Logan, Faeries - Freeform, Fairy AU, Fairy! Logan, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Human! Virgil, Kid Fic, M/M, Other, Seelie Court, The author uses the old spellings because they're more accurate to Seelie/Unseelie, Unseelie Court, cursing, originally anyways
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23487475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CinderAsh/pseuds/CinderAsh
Summary: Logan encounters a strange boy in the woods. His name is Anxiety, and he's hiding in the flowers.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Logic | Logan Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders/Deceit Sanders, Dr. Emile Picani/Sleep | Remy Sanders
Series: Bluebells AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1689808
Comments: 28
Kudos: 147





	1. Seeds

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: The name of the chapters comes from an interesting tidbit I learned about bluebell flowers while researching this story: they take at least five years to grow from a seed into a bulb, which they have to be before they flower. The first chapter takes place six or seven years before the events of the main story, so I found it very appropriate. This story should only be three chapters long, but who knows -- I have lots of ideas for these boys.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Logan encounters a strange boy in the woods. His name is Anxiety, and he’s hiding in the flowers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: The name of the chapters comes from an interesting tidbit I learned about bluebell flowers while researching this story: they take at least five years to grow from a seed into a bulb, which they have to be before they flower. The first chapter takes place six or seven years before the events of the main story, so I found it very appropriate. This story should only be three chapters long, but who knows -- I have lots of ideas for these boys.

He didn’t understand, and it bothered him to no end. 

Logan first saw the human in May, when the sun stayed long and the moon appeared less. The flowers had started to bloom, the trees green and vibrant, with alternating days of hot sun or torrents of rain. 

The faerie quite liked May. He preferred winter, of course, being Unseelie, but some nights in the spring he could look up at the sky and see every single star, and stars fascinated him to no end. Besides, there was no one telling him to do his job in the warm months (for there was no snow or cold, blustery winds in the time of the Seelie), and without the pestering to summon winter he could be alone. Logan enjoyed his solitude.

That is, he had, until the human child had stumbled into a flowered field in the small section of the forest the Unseelie had managed to mark off for himself. 

The boy (or at least Logan guessed he was a boy; he had never been good with human age or gender. Fey just _were,_ and though Logan had known he was male early on, many didn’t care about such things. It was such a _human_ concept, after all) was carrying a black book in one hand, a knapsack slung over one shoulder. He sat down in the field, and suddenly he was gone, hidden in the bluebells. 

The fey squinted, trying to see the strange mortal in the flowers, but the boy had achieved almost perfect camouflage. 

Logan had never seen him before, not in the forest. Humans rarely dared tread in the woods, for fear of its elven inhabitants. This one was an anomaly, and it was positively fascinating. Especially one so young -- he appeared to be less than Logan’s own age, making him maybe seven or eight. 

This went on for some time. The strange male would appear in the field, plop down among the bluebells, and stay there for some time, while Logan watched from the branches of the trees. When he finally left, Logan would check the place where he sat, searching for a sign as to how this _mortal_ could hide so thoroughly. 

It was on the seventh appearance of the sun that he found something strange: a piece of white parchment, with a sketch of the forest. The detail was quite good for the hand of a child, Logan had to admit, but it wasn’t the quality of the drawing that bothered him. It was the face in one of the trees, undoubtedly his own, with a line of scribbled human glyphs scrawled beside it. They took but a second to translate. 

_Just come say hi._

How had the mortal seen him? It was undoubtedly dangerous, Logan’s instincts told him. Best to abandon the area, warn his court, and allow the Seelie to deal with the small human intruding in the fey woods. Nevermind that the spring and summer fey were notoriously thoughtless, and might kidnap the child. Nevermind that they would likely forget that humans did not live as long as fey, despite (in their early years, at least) growing at the same rate. Nevermind that, eventually, after often forgetting to provide food or care for their pet human, they would throw him out for aging, or keep him till he died. 

No, Logan was to disregard all of that. 

The next day, Logan found himself creeping through the field, inching his way towards the bluebell patch. The faerie found his pride in his magic: he was quite good at it, and so he expertly used the flora to mask his presence. There was no possible way he could be noticed. 

“Hi,” the boy said, looking up and straight into Logan’s eyes. The human’s own irises were green, a deeper green than he would normally expect from a mortal, the color of grass and oak leaves. “Finally! I thought you would never talk to me.”

Well. That wasn't right. 

“How did you spot me?” he demanded, dumbfounded. He found himself adjusting his black shirt subconsciously, in a state of mild shock. 

“It’s a secret,” the child grinned. “What’s your name?”

 _How rude,_ Logan thought.

 _I shall never speak to him again,_ the rational part of his brain decided. _He probably has magic, and is a danger to me and all others of my kind._

 _But he’s fascinating,_ said the uncontrollable, irrational, _annoying_ part of his brain that was always championing silly matters like friendship and personal interests over actually doing his duty, which would logically be to report this at once. _And I do occasionally get lonely…_

“You may call me Logic,” he heard, realizing a second late that the words had come from his own mouth. “Which is an alias, of course, but it is the only name you shall get.” Logan had gone by the name for years, choosing it just as every other child did, in this world where true names had power. 

“I figured,” the mortal smiled, with his green eyes crinkled and the absence of one of his front teeth distinct. “I’m Anxiety.”

“Why choose ‘Anxiety’?” Logan asks, years later. He receives that same smile, although the adult tooth has long since grown in. 

“Why’d you choose Logic?” the male in front of him asks in turn, and Logan responds by blinking. 

“I don’t believe I know,” he replies. 

“Exactly,” his compatriot shrugs. “It just felt right.” 

"Are you a witch?” he queried weeks later, sitting cross-legged besides Anxiety and holding a book in his hands. 

“A witch?” Anxiety repeated, looking up from his sketchbook. 

“Bluebells are sometimes called harebells, especially in Scotland,” he said, “because witches are supposed to turn into rabbits to hide in the flowers. It is almost impossible to spot you without knowing if you are here; maybe you’re a witch.”

“Last I checked, I can’t turn into a rabbit,” the boy laughed. “Maybe I summoned you, though, by ringing the bluebells.”

“They are not literal bells, Anxiety.”

“My dad used to tell me that if you rang bluebells, faeries would come,” he shrugged. “But if a human hears a bluebell ring, that means someone dear to them will die.”

“You humans have such morbid myths,” he told his mortal companion, looking at the flowers. “A bluebell cannot make a sound, anyways, so if one hears something it would be purely coincidental.” 

“It’s fun to think about though,” said the human beside him, and Logan looked over at Anxiety, who was sprawled on the grass, staring at the clouds in the blue sky. “Hey, that one looks like a cat eating pasta out of a bucket.”

He looked at the cloud in question, and had to admit it _did_ appear so, as odd the image was. “Why do you humans engage in these flights of fantasy?” Logan asked, despite himself. 

“Coping mechanism, probably,” he replied, with the air of a child that, despite their age, knows enough about the world to call themself Anxiety. “Don’t you?”

“The Seelie, perhaps,” Logan sniffed, “but my court is far more realistic in our views than those sparkly fools.”

“Fair enough,” laughed the mortal. 

Logan soon found himself spending the spring and summer with the boy called Anxiety, sitting in the field. Anxiety brought him books written by humans when Logan got bored of fey texts, and in turn, the faerie deigned to ‘show off’ a bit, demonstrating his magic one day by summoning shadows and a storm. He couldn’t deny the fact that he had been quite happy to see Anxiety wasn’t scared at all, instead laughing as the rain fell around them and Logan scrambled to save their things because “We must save the books, Anxiety!” Once everything was stashed in a hollow tree, however, he managed to get a good look at the boy he had started to think of as a friend, and a laugh was shocked out of him. Anxiety’s bangs were plastered to his face, covering his eyes. 

“You look as though a mop has adhered itself to your skull,” Logan informed him, unable to hide his smile. 

“What’s that weird thing you’re doing with your face? Are you okay?” Anxiety asked, sarcasm negated by his own grin. Logan rolled his eyes. He knew he did not smile often, but still -- those levels of cheek were unwarranted. 

He learned Anxiety was ten, older than he would have guessed, and only a month younger than Logan himself. That he loved poetry and sewing and art but didn’t think he was really good at any of them, and would be mocked for these interests. That his parents had died when he was quite young, and he now lived with his elderly grandmother, who let him run off anywhere as long as he was in his bed the next morning. She had homeschooled him for his early years, and would only send him to an official establishment next fall, which told Logan why Anxiety wasn’t with his fellow human children in their brick school during the spring. It also explained why he’d been allowed to enter the fey woods at all, what with the healthy fear the locals had developed of the place. 

In turn, ‘Logic’ had revealed his love for the stars, (which led to Anxiety sneaking out one night to stargaze with him in the bluebell field), how he’d kept a lizard as a pet one summer, but released it at the end because a cold-blooded creature likely wouldn’t survive the winter months, and how he reported directly to the Unseelie ruler, because all fey had a job, young or old. “It’s just the way it is,” he explained. “I have responsibilities to my court, as do all fey children.”

“Bit like child labour, though,” Anxiety pointed out. 

“For humans, maybe,” he conceded, “but we mentally develop much faster.”

“But you live longer, so shouldn’t you get to embrace your childhood before your infinite adulthood?” reasoned the other, watching the ladybug that was clinging to his sleeve. 

“Not infinite,” Logan replied, and Anxiety raised his head in interest. “We live a very long time, to be sure, but all fey die eventually. When we run out of magic, we age and perish.” 

His friend considered that -- and Logan considered the human boy his friend, now. That notion had snuck up on him, it seemed, surreptitiously changing his label of ‘acquaintance’ to one of friendship. 

He didn’t really mind.

Fall came in colored leaves and bursts of chilly wind, of flowers wilting and apples ripening in the trees. Logan attended the passing of the seasons, or the transfer of control, from the Seelie Court to that of the Unseelie at the equinox. It was in the deepest part of the forest, the part that joined the realm of the fey to the human world. 

Logan wasn’t entirely happy about their regained dominion. He should have been, he knew: logic dictated it! With winter, his powers increased, and he gained structure and work he loved. Why would he not be glad?

 _Well,_ remarked the treacherous little voice in his head, _we can’t spend time with Anxiety in the winter, now can we?_

It was true, he mused as the crown of the fey on the podium shed its vibrant flowers and its green leaves turned red, orange, yellow, and brown. He’d be very busy, for one. Talyn, leader of the Unseelie, had promised him greater responsibility this year. And besides…

The woods were dangerous enough when the Seelie ruled. But Logan’s court had a tendency to be vicious, and they did not attempt to hide their darkness like their flowery counterparts. 

Were Anxiety to be discovered in faerie woods in winter… 

He didn’t want to think about it. 

“Logic!” called a familiar voice, and he turned to see two identical faces waving to him. 

“Prince, Duke,” he nodded. “I trust you are well?”

“Oh, Lolo, don’t be so formal with us,” Prince grinned, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “We’re friends, after all!”

“Or are we making you nervous?” smirked Duke. “No, something else is! You’ve got a secret, don’tcha?”

Logan’s lips thinned. He’d forgotten how alarmingly perceptive the Unseelie half of the brothers could be.

Prince and Duke were oddities among the fey, the children of parents from both courts. Prince was Seelie, Duke Unseelie, but they had remained close even when the courts did their best to seperate them. Now, they had achieved a sort of notoriety. Joan, leader of the Seelie court, was said to be molding Prince for his own role, and Talyn had already offered for the Duke to study under them. He had rejected the offer, saying that he didn’t want the vulnerability of fey leadership, and a faerie called Deceit had been selected instead.

Secretly, Logan suspected Duke’s reservations had less to do with every faerie in both courts knowing his true name (which was a requirement for Talyn and Joan, just as it had been for all fey leaders before them) and more to do with the restrictions being trained by Talyn would put on him. He loved his chaos, after all. 

“I don’t see what my personal affairs have to do with you,” he said, rather coldly. “No offense meant, of course.”

“Oh, Logic, you break our hearts!” Prince cried dramatically, clutching his chest. “How could you say such things to your bestest and oldest friends?”

“Advice’s by far the best of my friends.”

“Oldest friends!” Duke countered.

“I have known Deceit for far longer than either of you.”

Duke colored at the name (could he be any more obvious with his little crush?) and Prince exclaimed, “Friends!”

“...Dubious,” Logan said, turning back towards the proceedings. 

“C’mon, Logie, we both know you’re bored out of your mind having to watch this mind-numbing shit,” Duke told him, grinning. He was missing three teeth. _Fey aren’t supposed to lose teeth,_ the tiny part of his mind that hadn’t given up yet pointed out. “Let’s leave, and then you can tell us all about your little secret.”

“I will not be telling you anything,” he sighed.

But he ought to. He knew that. It was why he had been avoiding Advice lately, who had gotten a little too good at reading people after beginning his job as a healer. It was why after the meeting Logan threw himself into his work, so as not to cause any issues, any reasons for his court to keep an eye on him. It was why he began following Anxiety when the human boy left the forest each day, making sure he couldn’t be taken on his way home. 

Winter came and Logan began to change, as the power of his people’s season grew within him. His features, already pronounced, became sharper, hair longer (more _wild_ , Anxiety said, as he attempted to braid the dark locks), ears, nails, and teeth more pointed. He changed his clothes for winter, of course, wearing a night-blue cloak lined with rabbit fur over his usual dark attire, and grudgingly trading bare feet for boots. Anxiety laughed at him a fair bit, for that (“What’s your problem with shoes?” he had cackled, as Logan sulked besides him) but after he had to switch his sweatshirts for a heavy black parka, the human joined the fey in petulant anger. 

One day, Anxiety asked why fey changed appearances in the winter, gingerly examining Logan’s sharp nails, which bore an uncanny resemblance to claws. Logan replied that they didn’t -- they changed for _summer_ , or Unseelie did at least. His winter form was his true one; the one the human had first encountered was a disguise of sorts, a way to blend in among the Seelie, a defensive relic from when the two breeds of faerie were at war. 

He was afraid, then, looking at Anxiety, that he would flee. Unseelie were always the evil fey in human stories, not the playful tricksters but the monsters in the dark, and this human seemed to know every story, reciting them from memory to Logan as they lay in the field, watching clouds in the sky.

But Anxiety simply hummed quietly, looking up into Logan’s eyes. “Those don’t change,” he said, motioning to them. “Must be pretty easy for the Seelie to recognize, huh?”

“Why would my eyes be easy to recognize?” he asked, blinking. 

“They’re beautiful,” the human shrugged, far too casual, and returned to his study of Logan’s nails. “Hey, maybe I could paint your nails. My friend Morality’s been teaching me how.” 

(And if the tips of the faerie’s pointed ears turned red, his cheeks dusted with a similar colour, Anxiety was kind enough not to mention it.)

He knew it was dangerous, still meeting the human, but Logan still found himself entering the clearing each day, even though the bluebells had all wilted by August and the other flowers followed quickly, even as the grass turned brown. Sometimes, Logan told himself that it was because he wanted to learn from Anxiety, or because he wanted to interact with someone his age, or because he was simply ingrained in his habits. Always a new excuse. Nevermind that the information the human could teach him was nothing compared to his own vast reservoirs of knowledge, that Deceit, Prince, Advice and Duke were all his own age, and two were even of Logan’s court, that he was a _faerie_ , and the fey did not do routines, as creatures of the wild. 

The truth was, he found a certain amount of joy in meeting with someone who seemed to understand Logan’s reluctance to conform to the standards of his court, who was kind and laughed easily and shared stories and secrets and songs without any cost. The truth was that he was just a bit selfish. 

Logan’s selfishness would come back to bite him.

It was fall on the cusp of winter when it happened, a crisp afternoon in early November, and a Wednesday. This meant that Anxiety could only come later in the day, and carted along a backpack holding papers and books and math. As far as Logan could tell, math was a game with numbers with many nuanced rules, that he rather liked and Anxiety _hated_.

To make sure that the human managed to reach the clearing safely, Logan had begun to meet him on the path that was Anxiety’s way through the forest, using his magic to mask the two of them from the Unseelie patrolling the woods. Anxiety found it funny (he didn’t seem to quite understand the true danger the forest posed him) but a bit irritating, so Logan grudgingly met him halfway down the path instead of at the line of trees that seperated the forest and the town. 

So he sat in the woods, that Wednesday, high up in the branches, and waited, lost in thought. It had been several months since they’d met in the beginning of May, spending time together almost every day. He had expected the human to have run away in fear by now, to have stopped coming into the forest, to have been scared off by the magic or the changing of shapes or simply by the power Logan held. But the aptly named Anxiety (he was scared of so many things, of sharks and snakes and clowns and drowning and dying and blood) wasn’t afraid of Logan at all, it seemed. 

It was nice, not being feared -- even among his own people, he was treated with a healthy amount of caution. Faeries did not trust. They found security in favors, in debts, and even family, like Prince and Duke, eyed each other with suspicion. But the human boy believed so easily, never asking for a favor or a name, giving and never asking for anything in return. It did not match with what Logan knew, of humans or of fey. 

...Anxiety was late. 

He held out for two minutes longer, before he finally stood and darted through the branches, feet finding footholds that should not have held them, moving through the air and ignoring the fact that occasionally he never touched the branches at all. Such was being a faerie. 

Later, he would think back on the moment and thank the forest he had been so lucky. If he had waited a minute longer, had decided to run along the ground instead of in the trees, if he had listened to Anxiety when he rolled his eyes the day before and said “I’ll be _fine_ , don’t worry about me,” when Logan had told him to be careful… 

Logan found his human (sometime in the past months, the human boy had become his. When, he didn’t know, but it had happened so easily, Anxiety sliding into his life with his drawings and poetry and laughter and settling in like he had always belonged. If he believed in things like that, Logan would think it was fate.) standing frozen in the dirt path, eyes glazed and unfocused, books spread around him and backpack lying in the dirt. Unseelie had swarmed him, two of them examining the human in their midst as one -- _Deceit_ , Logan realized in shock -- worked his magic to keep him in a docile trance. 

“Why did he come here?” another faerie asked, one Logan vaguely recognized. From his recollection, he was named Raven. The third he had never met, and seemed a fair bit older than the other two and Logan himself -- Deceit, Raven, and Logan were all young fey, Raven the oldest at maybe fourteen and Deceit almost the same age as Logan himself. This faerie, however, despite appearing to be in their early twenties, had an air of age, and he would guess the mystery individual to be in their hundreds. 

“It doesn’t matter,” the older Unseelie smiled, a grin appearing on their face. “It’s just a human boy. Kill it or take it.”

“He -- He’s our age, Lady Belladonna,” protested Deceit, his brow furrowing. “A child. Shouldn’t we just send him away?”

“Oh, not he,” the apparently female faerie snarled, reaching out to grip Anxiety’s blank face in dark nails. “Humans… humans are beasts. And they call us creatures of the dark! _It_ has no more rights than an animal, age or not. Maturity has never affected the ways of the fey.” 

“But Lady--” Raven protested, looking as disturbed as Deceit, but he never got the chance to finish his sentence. Logan had heard enough. 

Lady Belladonna, whoever she was, had been correct. Maturity had very little to do with fey; age meant time, and a faerie scorned time, even physically. So Logan, young as he was at barely eleven winters (Logan had turned eleven just a few days ago -- Anxiety had given him some of the mechanical pencils he had liked, as well as a decorated case. He had said it was a ‘birthday gift’.), had power, power enough to reach out to the minds of the three fey and push them into sleep. 

He’d always been good at manipulating the brain -- better than even Deceit or Advice. 

The three Unseelie crumpled to the ground, eyes shutting even as they tried to resist, pushing back against his influence. The clearing soon quieted, silent but for the sound of quiet breathing and the wind in the trees.

Logan knew he had succeeded when Anxiety blinked and the haze over his eyes disappeared, Deceit’s control gone. The human gasped, stumbling backwards, and at that moment Logan finally emerged from the branches to pick up the backpack and the books, nodding in greeting.

“Logic?” Anxiety asked, sounding small, staring at the fey slumped around him. “What -- what happened? Are they…”

“Merely sleeping,” he replied, motioning to the rise and fall of Raven’s chest. “They will be alright.” His face hardens. “They deserved worse. What do you remember?”

“All of it, I think. They surprised me, and that one that looks like a snake did something -- I couldn’t move, I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t scream.” He hesitated, staring at the female faerie. “She wanted to kill me?”

“Or take you to our realm,” Logan said, straightening, Anxiety’s backpack in one hand and his books in the other. “Here. I need to make sure they don’t remember this encounter.”

The human took his belongings, watching as Logan crouched by the sleeping fey, touching his fingers to their temples. It took only a few seconds to alter their memories, to make them believe their enchanted sleep to be the result of a backfired spell by the Lady. (He takes special pleasure in placing the blame on her.)

He altered first the memories of Raven, then Belladonna, and then he reached for Deceit.

A yellow-gloved hand reached up to grasp Logan’s wrist. 

“Logic!” Anxiety exclaimed, a fearful squeak, rushing forwards, but Deceit spoke before he could aid him.

“Thank you,” the young Unseelie whispered, eyes forcing themselves open. 

“What?” Logan asked, unable to keep the shock from his voice. Deceit was one of the few faeries that could lie without repercussions, but the thanks seemed genuine. Whether he had become far better at lying than Logan had thought, or… 

“She would have murdered him,” Deceit laughed, a harsh sound. “Probably would have made me do it, a test for Talyn’s protégé. I _definitely_ would have been able to casually murder a kid my age.” Sarcasm practically dripped from his words, before his tone softened. “So, thank you, Logic.”

“You released Anxiety from the spell, didn’t you?” he realized, blinking down at the barely-conscious faerie. “You’re going to get yourself _killed_ , Deceit.”

“Wipe my memories,” he shrugged. “I’ll be fine. But be careful, okay? Belladonna isn’t alone in her views. There’s fey from both courts that are now advocating for violence against humans. Your boyfriend will need to be cautious.”

“He’s not my -- we aren’t -- we are far too young to be _courting_!” Logan protested, knowing full well his face was as bright as a rose, ears burning. Anxiety was in much the same state, although Deceit simply rolled his eyes.

“Of course you are,” the faerie sighed. “Just… keep an eye out, Logic. This forest has gotten dangerous, as of late.”

His eyes fluttered shut. A few seconds later, his breathing evened. Logan was rather impressed -- Deceit’d held out against the spell for far longer than he would have expected _anyone_ to be able to. Luckily, the strange resistance didn’t carry over when he moved to alter his memories, and soon he stood to face Anxiety. 

“It… It would be understandable if you decided to terminate our friendship,” he finally muttered, unable to meet the human’s green eyes. “You have now seen the truth of my people. We are vicious, and killers, and-”

“And you rescued me,” said Anxiety, voice startlingly calm. “And that other faerie -- Deceit, right? -- he didn’t want to hurt me either. I don’t think you’re vicious, or a killer.”

“Anxiety, you’ll be in danger if you continue visiting me. You could lose your life!” Logan exclaimed, motioning to the fallen faeries around him for emphasis, because the _stupid_ human didn’t understand, didn’t get that he might die or worse!

“That was always going to be true, dummy. We’re in a faerie forest. I’m a human,” Anxiety deadpanned. “C’mon.”

They walked through the woods to the clearing in silence, Logan working his magic to render them invisible to prying eyes, Anxiety staring at the dirt under his sneakers. The forest was still, for once.

The two arrived in their typical spot, standing near where they knew the bluebells would grow again in spring, hearing dead grass crinkle underneath their feet. The human set down his belongings, and hesitated, suddenly still.

“Are you alright?” Logan asked, glancing over. Anxiety was staring at the ground again, arms wrapped around himself in a sort of makeshift hug, bangs covering his eyes. 

“I… You saved my _life,_ Logic,” the other said, voice choked, and there were glistening tears streaming down his pale cheeks. “I would have died.”

Logan had never been good at feelings. He’d be the first to admit so -- they were Prince or Advice’s department. Still, he found himself moving forwards, pulling Anxiety into a hug, ignoring the tears wetting his cloak as he did his best to replicate what he’d seen Advice do for distressed fey. 

“I don’t want to die,” he heard, whispered into his shoulder. “I don’t want to die, L.”

“I won’t let you,” promised Logan, and heard from his own mouth, before he could even think about saying it, “I’ll protect your life with mine, if it comes to that.”

Anxiety let out a laugh at that, his grip tightening. “Well, that’s not very fair. You’re not allowed to die either, okay? I’ll protect you too.”

Logan had a response on the tip of his tongue (“You’re a human, how would you preserve my lifespan in any way?”) but a searing pain through his left eye interrupted him, and nothing more than a gasp of agony escaped the faerie. They seperated, Anxiety clutching the right side of his face. 

The feeling disappeared as quickly as it had manifested, and Logan immediately looked up, searching for their attacker, and instead found the human’s previously green eyes. 

The right one was a bright, shining purple. 

Anxiety’s mouth was open wide. “Logic, your eye--” he began, before reaching into his bag and fumbling for his communicator square. (Phone, he called it. Logan did not quite understand, but avoided touching it anyways -- it appeared to be made of metal, and he would not risk contact with iron.) He turned it on, before switching to a screen that reflected both of their faces. 

Logan had only ever looked at his reflection to ensure his presentability. He knew his eyes were different from those of humans, of course; Anxiety’s had circles of green around a black center, set on a white background, but Logan did not have those divisions. Color spread across the whole surface, lacking in whites, pupil, and iris. “Your eyes look like the night sky,” Anxiety had told him once, and he supposed the human was correct -- normally, they were a dark purplish blue color, with pinpricks of pale light across the surface. Still, he hadn’t understood why Anxiety had seemed so fascinated. (“Is it accurate?” the human had questioned. “Is the placement of the stars right?” Logan had eventually flushed red as the other tried to find constellations in his eyes, Anxiety had noticed and retreated, and that had been the end of that. He’d never brought it up again.)

But now his left eye was crossed with a pattern of greenish blue, like the aurora borealis in the Unseelie realm that his parents had taken him to see when he was very small, vibrant against the indigo background.

“What happened?” Anxiety asked, staring at himself on the screen of the phone, reaching up as if to touch the purple ring, ensuring it was truly there. “How -- why -- what _happened_?”

“I don’t know,” Logan said slowly, staring at his newly heterochromatic eyes. 

_Perhaps this is the price of befriending and saving a human,_ he thought to himself, meeting Anxiety’s panicked eyes with his own. _Perhaps it is a curse, or a punishment from the gods. A physical marking of my shame, of forgetting to take a name, a favor, a price, as is my nature._

“It’s okay,” Anxiety said, reaching out to take Logan’s hand and squeezing it gently. “It’s okay, L. We’ll figure it out. Besides, it looks cool as heck, right?”

“...That it does,” he nodded after a beat, returning the gesture, a wan smile stretching his lips despite the situation.

“Let’s… Let’s not worry about it for now,” suggested the human. “We’ve got better things to do, right?”

“Definitely. We had best get started on that math homework.”

Anxiety let out a laugh at that. “Ew. How about we just... cloud watch? Why don't we do that for now?”

They sat in the empty field, where their flowers would grow again come spring, and watched white fluff form in the blue sky through mismatched eyes. He glanced over at Anxiety, who smiled and reached out with his hand. The faerie took it. 

_If this new coloring is a curse, it’s worth it,_ decided Logan, flashing a smile at his boy of the bluebells before returning his gaze to the sky. 

At first, the change took getting used to. Fey whispered Logan had made a deal with the forest, had become vain and done it cosmetically, had been cursed. Humans said much the same about Anxiety. As time passed, however, and the colors didn’t change, those inside and outside the forest learned to accept the change. No one questioned it anymore, and eventually the two learned to forget the day in the clearing, to pass it off as a spell gone wrong in Logan’s case and an eye injury in Anxiety’s.

Neither of them found an explanation for it either, but it soon became apparent they didn’t need to. They had each other.

That was what mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check me out on Tumblr!  
> https://awkwardthings6.tumblr.com/


	2. Bulbs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil isn't okay (I promise), life sucks, and things get gayer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, second chapter! Expect the next one... any time between next week and a year.

Morning came in the beeping of a shrill alarm.

_ Scratch that _ , Virgil decided as he sat up blearily, shutting off the alarm immediately.  _ Doesn’t count as morning if it’s still dark out.  _

He grabbed his phone, wincing as the bright light shone into his retinas.  _ 2:31 A.M _ , the screen said. He was doing pretty well, then -- as long as he got to the coffee place by three, he’d be able to complete a four-hour shift in time to get to school at seven thirty. 

Ugh. He hated the night shift, but his boss liked having the cafe open 24/7, and he ought to be grateful; it was the only time (other than the weekends) that Virgil was able to actually work at, and due to the shitty time the pay was pretty good. It even made up for the lack of tips. 

He got dressed quickly, throwing on his patched sweatshirt over his ripped jeans and torn shirt. Makeup was fast, too, just some cheap foundation and dark eyeshadow under his eyes to hide how crappy he’d been looking lately.  _ No sleep will do that to a guy, _ he thought, doing his best to hide the dark shadows under his eyes, or at least make them look like eyeshadow. Say what you would, being an emo these days had some perks -- people thought the exhaustion and ragged clothes were for aesthetic, or some bullshit like that. 

Virgil was out the door quickly, locking it behind him and tucking his keys into his pocket. The boards on the porch creaked under his sneakers, and he grimaced at the noise. Creepy as all hell, that. 

As he walked in the darkness towards the better part of town, avoiding the patches of light given by the streetlamps ( _ What if I get mugged? _ ), he reached into his pocket and pulled out his headphones, plugging them into his old phone. Sure, it was dangerous to listen to music while walking alone at two in the morning, but this particular street bordered the woods, and no one wanted to cause a commotion near the home of the fey. There was a reason all the rich homes were in the center of Torbrook, sheltered from their mythical neighbours by human shields.

The ironically-called Sleep was standing at the counter when he arrived, sipping from an obnoxiously large cup and wearing his sunglasses inside. Because of course he was.

“You’re early, Anxiety,” he drawled, tossing a black apron across the counter. “Go sit down. You want a coffee?”

“I’m here to work,” Virgil deadpanned, tying on the apron, “not to buy shitty coffee.”

“Listen, we get a free drink for every shift, and you look like you need it,” Sleep retorted. “Do you ever sleep at all?”

“I need the free drink for later, when I get off,” he said, avoiding the question as he set his bag down in the back room, using his extra time to check his phone. 

Sunnyside had left him a voicemail. 

“Hey, Anxiety,” a voice said into his headphones. “It’s Beck, from the Sunnyside Hospital for Elderly Care. You still have some unpaid bills from last month -- do you want us to email them to you, or mail them? Please get back to us as soon as possible. Thanks!”

_ Crap.  _

“Everything okay?” Sleep asked, giving him a concerned look from the doorway. “Need me to stick around for a bit?”

“I’m good,” he said, mind scrambling for an explanation. “My, uh, my grandma forgot I had a shift today. She got worried.”

“I’m surprised Robin’s even letting you work here. She was always so protective,” Sleep grinned. “I haven’t seen her around town lately. How’s she doing?

_ Protective? _ the voice in the back of Virgil’s head screamed.  _ She's in a hospital! How is she supposed to be protective when she thinks I’m living with my aunt and that her shitty insurance is paying all these bills, while as far as anyone else knows she’s just getting a bit reclusive in her old age? _

“She’s good,” he said, forcing a smile onto his face as he went to stand behind the counter. “Bossy as ever.”

“Tell her I said hi,” his coworker nodded. “Alright, if you’re good, Anx, I’d better get going. I want to get a short nap in before school starts.”

“Got it,” he agreed, standing. “See you in English.”

“Bye, girl!” Sleep trilled, waving as the door slammed shut behind him. 

He dropped the smile almost instantly, glaring down at his purple nails. Four hours. He just had to get through four hours. 

“Morning, Anx!” chirped Morality, coming through the doors of the cafe. Virgil sighed internally. Morality was always so  _ cheerful.  _ It didn’t make any sense. “Can I just get that nice caramel thing you made for me last time?” He passed his thermos over the counter, still smiling. 

“Sure,” he nodded, taking Morality’s cup and grabbing his own. His coworkers, Oak and Swift, had come in half an hour ago, thankfully early, so he passed the containers to Swift as he untied his apron. “One caramel latte, and for me, as much espresso as you can get into a cup.”

“Anxiety, you’re going to give yourself a heart attack,” Oak deadpanned, but she took his place at the counter. “Have fun at school, kid.”

“When has school ever been fun?” Swift pointed out, before xe turned to face Anxiety. “I’ll give you three shots.”

“Five.”

“Three.”

“Four,” Oak said, “but no more coffee for the rest of the day.”

“Fine, parental figures,” he rolled his eyes, picking up his backpack. “Four.”

“Hey, I thought I was your parental figure friend!” Morality cried, managing to look betrayed even as he giggled. 

“You’re the  _ paternal _ figure, popstar,” Virgil told him, hopping over the counter to protests from both Swift and Oak. They didn’t have to wait long for their drinks, and soon the two of them were in Morality’s car, sipping on the life-giving substance. 

Morality was unusually quiet, had been since they left the cafe, and finally Virgil broke the silence to ask “Hey, everything okay?”

“Oh, it’s fine, kiddo,” he grinned, but the smile quickly faded. “It… It just sounded like you made a pun with my name.”

“...Your real name?” Virgil said, blood running cold. “I’m so sorry, Mor, I didn’t -- I swear, I don’t know it--”

“No, of course you don’t,” Morality nodded, smiling again, more genuinely this time. “I’ve just been a bit jumpy lately. The forest’s been so… quiet. We’re entering spring -- shouldn’t we be seeing more faeries?”

“Only Seelie,” Virgil shrugged absentmindedly, staring out the passenger-side window at the foreboding trees in the distance. “Unseelie will mostly be returning to their realm for the winter.”

“I don’t know how you remember that stuff,” the other teenager sighed. “I can never keep track.”

_ He hadn’t meant to say that. Shit.  _ “I always liked those stories,” he said, chuckling weakly. It was enough to fool Morality, or maybe that was just because he had spotted his boyfriend. 

“Sweetheart!” Morality called, rolling down the window. “C’mon, you’re gonna be late for school!”

“Thank you, love,” smiled his boyfriend, sliding into the backseat and kindly ignoring Morality’s blush. “Anxiety, I see you’ve stolen the front seat again, you heathen.”

“Best friend privileges,” drawled Virgil, taking a sip of his coffee. “Morning, Princey.”

Prince rolled his eyes, before leaning forward and stealing Morality’s thermos and drinking from it. “Listen, One American Reject, I’ll have you know that while I respect and honor best friend privileges, I will still attempt to steal the seat closer to my boyfriend at any opportunity.”

“Fair enough,” Virgil nodded. “That was one of your better nicknames, too.”

“ _ Thank _ you,” he grinned as Morality started the car. 

“Anxiety and I were just mentioning how we haven’t seen much activity from the forest as of late,” Morality said. “Put your seatbelt on, honey! Have you noticed anything?”

“Er… I haven’t seen as many fey recently, no,” Prince answered, biting his lip as he fastened said seatbelt. “It’s dangerous to go near the forest, anyways -- they might be there, and we just haven’t spotted them.”

“But usually I see  _ something _ ,” Morality countered, drumming his fingers on the wheel. “It’s just… concerning.”

“Speaking of fey, did Mariposa make plans for the play again this year?” Virgil asked Prince, turning in his seat to face Morality’s boyfriend. “She always tells the actors about her weird precautions first.”

“What do you mean, plans?” Prince raised an eyebrow. “I’m new, remember?”

“Oh, Ms. Mariposa always gets worried that the fey will try to attend the school play,” Morality laughed. “Apparently they did one year? It was ages ago. But she always goes all out to try and protect the auditorium during rehearsals and performances and stuff, all salt lines and horseshoes, and she paid the school to make sure the doors and windows have iron on them. She even hangs bells everywhere! I get performances, kinda, but rehearsals? Tech’d notice if anyone snuck in, and they can’t exactly be actors!”

“They could, actually,” Virgil said, and then mentally smacked himself. Sleep deprivation was going to kill him.

“Really?” his cheerful friend asked, surprised. “I thought they couldn’t lie!”

_ Apparently, I’m the one who can’t lie today.  _ “They can’t,” he agreed reluctantly, because he’d dug this grave and now he had to lay in it. “But acting is different from lying. People are aware you aren’t actually that person, that whatever you say on stage isn’t necessarily true, and they’re faeries, so they exploit that loophole.”

“How do you know that?” Prince inquired, staring at Virgil with a strange expression on his face. 

“My gran. She, uh, used to tell me about meeting some Seelie once, when she was young, and was wearing an iron pendant. They… tried to tempt her by telling her about celebrations they had, and mentioned a performance,” he lied through his teeth, thinking fast. “She was confused, like you were, Mor, and they told her that.”

“I didn’t know your grandmother had almost been taken,” remarked Prince. “Could I ask her about it? That necklace sounds… fascinating.”

Virgil felt himself tense, even as Morality chirped “Oh, I love Robin! She’s so nice! Remember those cookies she used to make for us?”

“They were great,” he nodded, plastering a smile across his face. “But, uh, she’s been kind of sick lately. Not really up to visitors. Sorry.”

“Oh, alright,” Prince nodded, suddenly all bright cheer again. “What were you saying about those cookies, love?”

He tuned out, head pressed against the soothingly cool glass of the window. Those bills were going to suck to pay -- mortgage payments were due soon, too, along with the money needed for everything else. His aunt wasn’t going to be any help at all, the bitch, but his job at the cafe didn’t pay enough for all of the money he owed.

The money just didn’t add up. A sigh escaped him, quiet enough that Morality didn’t notice. He was going to have to dip into his college fund again, huh?

Virgil liked to sit near the windows in classes. Sure, it could be a bit distracting, but even with the coffee, he was too exhausted to pay attention anyways. He liked being able to sit and watch the trees in the distance, observe the squirrels in the large elm that grew beside the school. 

An acorn dropped onto the open windowsill, rolling towards Virgil slightly.

And, of course, there was another reason he liked this placement. 

Elm trees didn’t have acorns. He knew this, had known it when the very first of the nuts had appeared, when he had picked it up in curiosity and noticed it was a little too light. Acorns weren’t heavy, of course, but they had some weight to them. He’d popped off the acorn cap with his fingernail, noticing the smell of sap, and his suspicions had been proven correct -- the nut was hollow, with a folded, thin wedge of paper curled inside.

Peeling out the paper had been difficult, but with one hand doing as he pretended to rummage inside his desk and the other feigning note taking for the teacher’s benefit, he had managed to extract a note. 

He did much the same thing with this new acorn, glad that his seat was in the back of the class and that Ms. Vlinder, his math teacher (and Ms. Mariposa’s wife) was writing out a long problem on the board. Stashing the hollow nut in his desk, he unfolded the paper on his notebook, as stealthily as possible. 

_ Anxiety, _

_ I should be able to meet you later today -- Advice has agreed to cover for my absence. I’ll see you then, unless plans change. The usual spot. _

_ You’re probably reading this in math again, so stop procrastinating on your work, please. Just because you do not like the subject does not mean you should neglect it. Besides, it would probably take up less of your time (like you keep complaining it does) if you actually took the time to do it in class.  _

_ Logic _

He grinned to himself. Well, that was something to look forward to, at least. 

“Anxiety,” said Ms. Vlinder, raising an eyebrow at him from the front of the classroom. “What are you reading?”

His face flushed red. “Um… nothing.”

“Well, whatever it is, it doesn’t look like calculus. Save it for after class, please. Now, can you answer the question on the board?”

He’d gotten lucky, thank god -- the question was one from last night’s homework, and he’d actually done it for once. Virgil muttered his response, slouching in his seat and trying to ignore the heat on his cheeks. Morality cast him a glance, mouthing  _ Are you okay?  _ from his seat closer to the board. 

Virgil nodded briefly at him, stuffing the note into the pocket of his sweatshirt. 

“Stay for a second, Anxiety,” Ms. Vlinder told him as the bell rang for lunch. He did so, fidgeting nervously where he stood. 

“Do you want me to stay?” Morality asked quietly, coming up to him as the other students left the classroom, casting a glance at their teacher. 

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” he shook his head, mustering up as much false bravado as he could. “Save me a spot, though.”

“Of course, kiddo,” grinned the other teen, before also leaving the room. 

“Are you doing okay, Anxiety?” Ms. Vlinder asked once the room was empty, eyes on Virgil. “I normally wouldn’t ask, but you’ve been extra distracted lately, and your grades have dropped. Even in English, and you’ve always been praised by Mx. Cee for your work in that class. Do you want me to talk to your grandmother?”

“I’m fine,” he muttered, stuffing his hands into his pockets and curling his fingers around the note in an attempt at comfort.

“My wife mentioned seeing you when she went to pick up our coffee this morning,” the teacher told him, frowning. “That would have had to be a very early shift, Anxiety. Are you sleeping alright? Do you want me to talk to the counselor-”

“I need money for university,” he interrupted, the practiced falsehood he’d told everyone about his job falling easily between his lips. “I’m  _ fine _ , really. Can I please leave?”

“...Okay,” she finally nodded. “Have a good lunch.”

“Thanks,” he said quickly, grabbing his backpack and practically running out the door before she could change her mind. 

His friends liked to eat lunch out in the courtyard. It was easier for all of them, the cafeteria being too loud for Sleep and too stressful for Virgil. For March it was relatively warm, and it was an unspoken tradition for every member of their small group to find themselves near the same elm tree that bordered the math classroom for lunch break now that the cold had finally broken. So that was where Virgil went, slipping out the doors with his hood up, ignoring the brief chill of the wind. Morality waved to him, patting the ground besides him, Prince arguing with Sleep about something. 

“Why are you fighting again?” Virgil sighed as he sat besides Morality, setting down his backpack to lean against it. “What did Princey do now?”

“ _ Me? _ ” the dramatic male asked, aghast. “Why me?!”

“We were debating who your mysterious boyfriend might be,” grinned Morality, elbowing Virgil. “That’s who gave you that note, right?”

“Spill, girl,” Sleep drawled, taking a long sip from his Starbucks cup.  _ Where did he even get that? Torbrook didn’t have a Starbucks! _ “Is he hot?”

“I don’t have a boyfriend!” Virgil protested, face red again. “The note --  _ stop rolling your eyes, Sleeping Beauty, I don’t! --  _ is none of your business.”

“Aw, you think I’m beautiful!” cooed Sleep, as Morality protested “It is certainly our business! We’re your friends, and as such we have a right to know about your love life! It was in the best friend contract, Anx!”

“No, it wasn’t,” Virgil rolled his eyes. The ‘best friend contract’ had been something he and Morality had made when they were nine, meant to be a joke. Morality’s mom had helped him frame it, and he’d hung it near his desk. It still was on the wall in his room. “I wrote that.”

“Well, I  _ deed _ _n’t_ expect that to work, anyways,” Morality grinned, and Sleep and Virgil groaned, Princey letting out a snort. “Still, though!”

“Yes, Anxiety, tell us about your mysterious lover’s note!” Prince exclaimed, pretending to swoon. “Every last detail of your courtship! Tell us about your Romeo; did you make the first move, or did he? Have you kissed yet? Do we know him?!”

“I’m certainly hoping I’m not Juliet, because she was thirteen and he was a grown adult, and also  _ they died _ ,” Virgil deadpanned, though internally his mind was racing, scrambling for an excuse. He seemed to be doing that a lot, lately. “Also, no, no, and no! I’m not dating anyone! The note was from a friend of mine who lives outside Torbrook. We, uh, met up over the weekend, he left it for me because when I got there he was out to buy groceries, and I just realized I accidentally grabbed it from his house.”

“You never leave town,” Morality shook his head. “Try again.”

“Actually,” Sleep interjected, actually looking interested now, “last Sunday he wasn’t at work for once. Asked me to cover for him. Are you telling me you actually went to visit this friend?”

“ _ Yes, _ ” he sighed. “Now they get it. We all know I’m doomed to be alone, anyways.”

“If you keep talking bad about yourself I will physically fight you!” Morality screeched, tackling Virgil into a hug as Sleep rolled his eyes in fond exasperation and Prince snickered at them both. 

After school, he found himself walking home. He never accepted Morality’s rides on the way back from school, always coming up with some excuse or another to walk. Virgil suspected the cheerful teen believed he was sneaking off to see someone, which would explain how  _ that  _ idea had started, but the truth was that he simply couldn’t let his best friend figure out that his grandmother wasn’t in the house. As far as Morality or anyone else knew, he was living with his grandmother in their nice house near the edge of town. As far as his grandmother knew, he was living with his aunt in her apartment a few towns away, and their shitty insurance was being supported by said woman. Only he knew the truth: that when his aunt had come to visit his grandmother in the hospital when she’d first been admitted a few months ago, she’d sat down with him at the dining table and told him that he wouldn’t be staying with her. 

“I have nowhere else to go--” he’d tried to tell her, but Caroline (she had no other title, having grown up outside Torbrook) had stood up from her seat, eyes shards of ice. 

“I’m not having Lydia’s child in my home,” she’d spat, and Virgil had recoiled at the mention of his mother. “My sister poisoned everything she touched -- she was driving, that night when she died, wasn’t she? Killed your father and your sister, and finally took herself down too. I wouldn’t be surprised if she did it on purpose. She was like that.”

“She -- it was an accident!” he cried. “Don’t talk about Mom like that!”

“I will talk about her any way I damn well please,  _ Anxiety _ ,” his aunt snapped. “You’re just like her, you know. You even call yourself after her! You could have chosen anything, and you decided on a goddamn disorder!”

“Gram told me-”

“I don’t give a fuck what she told you. That woman’s batshit crazy. She tore apart our family to come back to this town, and when I thought the cycle would finally end with her, my idiot sister forgave her, and granted her custody of her child when she died.” Caroline had paused there, picking up her bag. “You’ve been poisoned by both of them, Virgil, and I’m not risking my own life or happiness to deal with helping you just to let you go back after the old bitch dies. The old woman will be gone within a month without money for her treatment, you know that, and I’ll take you in then, finally get around to fixing you.”

She glanced at the rainbow flag magnet sitting on the fridge, holding up a picture of Virgil and his grandmother smiling together at the camera, her expression twisting from simple hatred into something ugly. “Maybe we’ll finally be able to get that gay bullshit out of your head, then.”

“Who am I supposed to stay with?” he’d asked, quiet and resigned, because he understood what was happening, had known deep inside the moment that his grandmother had told him to call Caroline that things would go wrong. 

“Just stay here,” she’d rolled her eyes. “You should be able to care for yourself, Virgil, you’re almost an adult. I’ll see you in a month, when she’s gone.”

He’d felt like laughing, even with the dark bags under his eyes and the crippling exhaustion he hadn’t yet learned how to manage, when his aunt had come back a month later, expecting to see her mother on her deathbed. The confusion and anger on her face when she’d seen Robin sitting up in her bed, hooked up to an IV but chatting merrily with a nurse, and had heard the old woman say “Oh, Carol, hon! I know we’ve had our differences, but I’m so glad you’ve been able to put them past you to care for our Anx, and help with the bills. The doctors say I should be out by August, dear, just in time to see him off to college. How will I ever thank you?”

His aunt had looked at him, standing on the other side of the bed, where his grandmother wasn’t looking, and he’d grinned, twirling his finger near his temple in gentle circles, the sign for crazy, and pointed at first his grandmother, and then himself. There had been a brief flash of fiery anger in her eyes, before Caroline had returned her gaze to her mother. “No need,” she’d smiled benevolently, and Virgil had to give it to her; she was a brilliant actress. “We’re family, after all. It’s what Lydia would want.” 

(He’d regretted taunting her later, when she’d thrown his grandmother’s favorite vase against his head as he tried to leave the house, trying to escape her wrath. She’d been screaming that he was poison, as toxic as his mother and grandmother before him, when the world fuzzed to black, and had left Virgil to wake up a few hours later with his bright purple hair dark with water and blood. He’d only seen her a few times since, when they’d met outside the hospital to visit his grandmother. They’d never mentioned it, and if she noticed how he was constantly on edge around her, she didn't tell him.)

Virgil snapped himself out of his thoughts, unconsciously rubbing the back of his head. The injury had healed, now, but sometimes he found himself touching the spot anyways, especially after certain nightmares. 

He glanced around as he ducked into a gap between the trees, shifting to the right through a bush to find himself on the rough path he’d carved out over years of walking through these trees. 

It had been too long since he’d visited, he saw -- the grass had begun to regrow, and he muttered silent apologies to the forest as it was crushed under his torn sneakers. A faint breeze swirled around him, lifting the branches, and he grinned to himself. Virgil wasn’t much for gods, capital G and singular or otherwise, but he’d always believed these woods held a magic all their own, even beyond the faeries that used it as a portal between his realm and theirs. The place seemed to hum with it, a quiet force all its own, and he half-believed he’d only ever survived his adventures into it because it let him, had perhaps even guided him to the field of flowers when he was young. 

It was only a matter of minutes before he reached the clearing, and he shivered as the sunlight hit his skin fully, the afternoon sun’s warmth combatting the cool breeze. 

“There you are,” he heard from behind him, and he whirled around at the familiar voice.

“You’re starting to look like Slenderman,” he grinned at Logic, who had grown taller  _ again _ .

“Those legends were inspired by my people,” the faerie said, rolling his eyes. “And I will have you know I am of perfectly average height for an Unseelie. At least I am not the size of the average mushroom, like those flowery nitwits.”

“Don’t be rude,” Virgil scolded, but he was still smiling, and pulled Logic into a hug even as he said it. “I missed you,” he muttered into his shoulder.

“...I missed you as well,” Logic told him, warm against the crisp March breeze. “It has been a long winter.”

“You look exhausted,” he pointed out, frowning as he pulled away to examine the shadows under the faerie’s mismatched eyes. “When did you last sleep?”

“I’m not the only one,” retorted the other, taking his hand and pulling him further into the sunny space between the trees. The grass was soft as the two sat, Virgil taking off his backpack to put it besides him. “I told you you would need adequate rest to ensure your head healed properly.”

“It’s fine,” he grumbled. Logic still moved behind him to check, examining the skin on the back of his head. “It really is, L. The magic did the trick -- no pain, no dizziness, nothing.”

“It looks alright,” the faerie conceded, although he still seemed perturbed. “Be careful, though, Anxiety. It may have been a while ago, but head wounds can have lasting effects.”

“I know,” he nodded, turning to face Logic again. “Now, why do you look like you haven’t slept since August?”

“I could say the same to you.”

“ _ Logic. _ ”

“It has been an… eventful winter,” sighed the dark-haired faerie, lying back in the grass. “There has been strife in both courts for years, but everything has gotten worse now. The heir to the rule of the Seelie Court has gone missing.”

“What? How is that even possible?” Virgil asked, staring down at him. 

“He disappeared in late summer, at the very end of August. Both courts have assumed they are being framed for what happened.” Logic closed his eyes, frustration seeping into his words. “I’m… friends with him, I suppose. I’m a bit worried about him -- Prince was never known for his intelligence.”

“Prince?” he blinked, a cold wave of suspicion washing over him. “Short, dramatic, acts like he stepped out of a Disney movie? Acts like the universe personally affronted him and will only accept an apology if it brings cookies?”

“You know him?” asked the faerie, eyes flashing open as he sat up. “When did you meet him? How? Did he hurt you?!”

“He sounds like Morality’s boyfriend,” Virgil told him, a mix of confusion and anger and  _ fear _ rising in his chest. “Princey moved to town just in time for school to start -- they started dating in January. Apparently they had Christmas together, some cute fairy tale kiss under the mistletoe.” He’s vaguely aware his breath is quickening, but the blood pounding in his ears is far too loud to concentrate. “Oh god, L, what if he hurts Mor?”

“We cannot be sure your Prince is the same as mine. It could just be a coincidence,” Logic told him, moving closer to hold Virgil’s shoulders. “Breathe, Anxiety. It is alright. Do you remember the pattern you taught me?”

They did a breathing exercise, a four-seven-eight method Virgil had once led Logic through when they were fourteen and the faerie had been having a panic attack. He’d had no idea Logic remembered. 

“We’re going to have to figure out a way to definitively identify whether they are the same person,” he heard a while later, once he had calmed. His head was on Logic’s lap. He didn’t remember lying down, but long fingers were running through his hair and Virgil was far calmer than before, so he shrugged it off. “There’s no way he’d be willing to accompany you near the forest, right?”

“I doubt it,” he shook his head. “Everyone’s scared about this place. How’ve you been getting the messages to me? Could we use that?”

The faerie sighed. “Unfortunately, no. I’ve been making use of the birds in the area to do that -- a little magic, a promise of food, and they do whatever I wish.”

They sat in silence for a time, each with thoughts running rampant through their minds. Something tugged at Virgil’s attention, and he focused, trying to remember what he’d forgotten…

“His eyes!” he exclaimed, startling them both. 

“What?” Logic asked, a trace of amusement in his voice. “What about them?”

“Shouldn’t they be like yours, if he’s a Seelie?” said Virgil, sitting up. “All… fey-ish?”

“That isn’t a word.”

“Shush, you. Point is, shouldn’t I have been able to tell he was a faerie because of that? Or because of his ears? Do Seelie also have the pointed ears, or is that just your lot?”

His eyes widened. “An illusion, of course! Anxiety, you absolute genius!”

“I try,” he grinned. 

“The solution would be to pose as a human, accompany you to your place of schooling, and speak to him myself!” Logic exclaimed. “Do you have any human clothing I can borrow?” He hesitated. “Only if it is alright with you, that is. We can come up with another solution.”

“Actually, that works out,” Virgil told him. “I lied to my friends about visiting someone out of town over the weekend -- they’re going to ask for photos or something for proof, knowing them, so you can stand in as my imaginary friend.”

“What were you actually doing?” Logic asked, frowning, and Virgil mentally cursed. Why was he so goddamn  _ perceptive _ ? “We haven’t seen each other in a few months, so it was not on my behalf, and I have never known you to lie without reason.”

“...I was visiting my gran,” he confessed, staring at the blades of grass under his hands. “She hasn’t been doing too well lately, and my aunt still isn’t helping with money. I’m probably going to have to take more shifts at my job, and I wanted to see her without my aunt there for once before I started having no time to.”

“You told me once that it was strange that my people made me work even as a child,” Logic said, voice quiet. “You are clearly not doing well, Anxiety, and your health is precarious enough as it is. You should have gone to human doctors for that head wound, and you appear exhausted.”

“I’m fine, L,” he snapped. 

“No, you aren’t!” 

They both were startled by his shout, and Logic pinched his nose in faint exasperation. “I apologize. That was unnecessary. But I think you really should inform your grandmother of the situation. At this rate, even if you save her, you may kill yourself in the process.”

“She’ll make Caroline take me in, or ask a friend of hers from out of town. I can’t leave Torbrook now,” he shook his head. “I can’t. I’d be leaving you, and Mor, and… and God, L, there’s some sort of curse on this place, and I want to go to college, I want to see the world before I’m dragged back here!”

Everyone, even the fey, knew of the strange power of the town, and its effect on its residents. Virgil had watched people try to leave for years, to go to college or to just finally escape, and yet somehow, every single person, even the ones who hated the place most bitterly, were dragged back, unable to stay away permanently. It had happened to his gran, he knew -- she’d left, married a man she’d met in college, had his mom and Caroline, and then when both of the girls were ten, had found herself divorcing her husband and returning to Torbrook. Robin had hated herself for it, said so to Virgil after she’d had a bit too much wine, but she hadn’t seen another way -- the place had seemed to pull on her soul, and she couldn’t drag her new, innocent family along with her. 

The only people who had ever seemed to permanently escape were the ones who had accidentally revealed their names, and Virgil suspected that was only out of pure necessity. They could only survive on the outside -- returning to Torbrook was a death sentence, or worse, with any faerie or opportunistic human ready to use their true names against them. It was what had happened to Taylor, formerly called Yellow. They had accidentally told their true name at a party, gotten a bit too vulnerable, and one of their friends had told the whole school. They’d left town the next day, and hadn’t been back since. Their parents had occasionally visited them, but never seemed able to permanently stay with their child, much as they wanted to. Eventually, the visits stopped, and then so did all communication.

Taylor could have been dead, for all anyone knew, the pull of Torbrook doing to them what it had done to all the others who had resisted -- first sickness, like the flu, a shivering weakness, and eventually… 

Well, after a girl called Fortune had died in the hospital near her college, the doctors unable to help her, no one had wanted to risk it. 

So Virgil couldn’t leave Torbrook, even if he wanted to. He was saving every second for college, and maybe for a trip after that if he got lucky. 

He  _ wouldn’t. _

Abruptly, he stood. 

“Anxiety, I-” Logic began, and Virgil knew him well enough to know the other was about to apologize, and he couldn’t take that, not then. 

“Meet me here again in a few days, okay? I’ll bring clothes and stuff, and I’ll let the school know you’re a visiting student. They let that kind of thing happen, usually assume it’s a cousin who was born here who got the sickness. Super lax about it, weirdly.” He was aware he was babbling now, as he grabbed his bag, but he couldn’t stop himself from speaking. “Sunday should work, yeah? You can come with me on Monday, I can say we drove down from your home together.”

“Anxiety, what if it is him?” Logic asked, interrupting him mid-tangent. “Not only will we face the wrath of the next ruler of the Seelie Court, but will also expose the fact that we have been… consorting.”

“I’m not letting Mor get hurt,” said Virgil shortly, stepping back to leave. “I don’t need my best friend getting kidnapped by a faerie on my plate, too. I’ll see you Thursday.” He turned, and, without giving Logic a chance to respond, left the clearing. 

It was Sunday before he knew it, and Virgil was exhausted. All of his friends had noticed that he was more tense, more tired, more snappish -- he remembered muttering something about college admissions, which made sense since the letters were supposed to be coming in the next couple weeks, and they passed the mood change off as heightened anxiety. If Sleep noticed him picking up more shifts than ever, mowing lawns and doing whatever he could for money around town, he didn't say anything, and Virgil was grateful. Besides, Sleep himself was an insomniac -- he would just be a hypocrite.

Not to say Virgil had insomnia. More than anything, he wanted to fall onto his bed and sleep for a week. But he couldn’t, not yet.

He asked for the day off for both Sunday and Monday. His boss didn’t protest, telling him to go get some rest in a quiet tone. Sleep didn't make fun of him like usual, either, and there was no teasing him about going to see a boyfriend, only a quiet thumbs up.

The forest was quiet when he entered, a bag over his shoulder, and he shivered. It was disconcerting. Virgil had gotten used to noise, blasting music over his headphones as he worked, and then in lectures or with his loud friends every other moment. Faint birdsong, wind in the trees, dirt under the combat boots his gran had bought him two Christmases ago -- he wasn’t accustomed to them anymore. 

Perhaps that’s why Logic could sneak up on him so easily. 

“You look awful,” the faerie said bluntly from beside him, startling him enough that he almost tripped. He got lucky -- Logic reached out to steady him, concern shining in his strange, mismatched eyes. “Anxiety, you… you look worse than when I last saw you. Are you doing alright?”

“I’m fine,” he said, trying for a smile. Judging from the look on Logic’s face, it wasn’t convincing. He patted the bag. “Look, I brought you clothes. Got a couple of outfits. And, bonus-” he reached into his coat, pulling out a hairbrush and the scissors his grandmother had used to use to cut Virgil’s own hair when he was young. “We’re finally going to make you presentable, Tarzan.”

“How dare you?” Logic exclaimed, but there was no heat behind his words, just a quiet underlying concern that Virgil almost hated more. “My hair is perfectly fine!”

“Listen, you look like a member of Aerosmith,” Virgil rolled his eyes. “I’m thinking we can put it in a bun. Or maybe cut it even shorter! I’m just saying, you’re cosplaying a rocker from the 80s.”

“My hair isn’t that messy, or that long!” the faerie protested, but he let Virgil lead him to an old tree stump and sat down, albeit reluctantly. “Not too drastic of a change, Anx, or I swear, I’ll turn yours pink.”

“Eh, I needed a new dye job, anyways,” Virgil shrugged, and narrowly dodged Logic’s attempt to swat at him. 

Half an hour and much swearing later, the disheveled hair was brushed through and tied into a bun. Logic looked unbelievably cute. It was not fair in the  _ slightest _ \-- Virgil’s dark gay heart wasn’t built for this kind of shit!

_ Alright Virge, stop checking out your friend. _ he snapped at himself, handing Logic his phone to see his new look as he reached into the bag.  _ He’s a faerie, firstly, and also, you’re doing this to save Mor. Haven’t got time for this, you disaster gay.  _

“I will confess, this does suit me,” the faerie smiled, looking up at him. “You’re quite good at this.”

“My gran taught me,” he shrugged, before dumping the bag of clothes onto Logic’s lap. “Pick an outfit.”

“This is not the same kind of clothing you wear,” blinked the faerie, looking through it. 

“You’d  _ hate _ wearing my clothes, and they wouldn’t even fit you,” he pointed out. “I brought you… I dunno, nerd stuff. Should make you look respectable and smart, or whatever -- we’re going to play into all the stereotypes, today. Besides, people ought to think of you like you are, not like some emo.”

“You think I’m smart?” Logic asked, staring up at him. 

“You’re the smartest person I know, dumbass,” Virgil told him. “If you don’t want to wear any of that, it’s fine, I packed a T-shirt and jeans, and you could borrow my hoodie, I just thought it was kind of more your style-”

“No,” the other smiled, and  _ wow _ , Virgil was really gay. “You… yes. I would prefer to be thought of as smart or respectable, I just didn’t realize that was something that could be done.”

“Anything’s possible when you harness preconceived prejudices,” he grinned in response.

Virgil couldn’t mask his amazement when Logic whispered to the forest, convincing the plants to grow together to make him a screen to change behind (he’d always been fascinated by magic, even when they were kids), but forced himself to stare at his phone when the faerie went behind it. He’d read through the same Tumblr post four times without understanding a word of it when Logic said “Anxiety?”

He’d chosen a black polo and a dark indigo tie, a shade that perfectly offset both colors of his eyes, paired with dark pants and his rabbit-fur boots. He looked  _ hot. _

“You… you’re going to need different shoes,” Virgil choked out.

“Oh, yes, I suppose I will,” Logic nodded. “Here, I am going to attempt an illusion.” He ran his fingers over his ears, and the points vanished, rounding. The rest of his features softened, less harshly  _ fey _ and more human. He paused at his eyes, frowning.

“What’s wrong?” the human asked, as they had yet to change. 

“Eyes are… harder to hide,” the faerie confessed. “For fey they are quite literally the windows to the soul. I believe I will require an external object near my face to mask my eyes to cast the spell on.” He bit his lip. “If we restyled my hair to have bangs a bit like yours, I could use that, but I do not wish to ruin your hard work.” 

Virgil frowned, thinking back, before snapping his fingers. “Princey carries around contact solution in his bag! I bet that’s how he’s doing it -- casts the illusions on the contacts, pops them into his eyes, good to go.” He grinned. “You, Logic, are lucky I am so blind.”

“Excuse me?” he frowned. “I think your vision is alright. I wouldn’t have let those scissors near me, otherwise.”

“I wear contacts too, most of the time; good excuse for my weird eyes, people who don’t know me assume they’re colored. Plus, glasses don’t match my aesthetic.”

“What aesthetic?” Virgil glared at him, and Logic snorted in laughter.

“Don’t be rude, nerd. Anyways, I carry around my spare pair of glasses just in case, because if I lose a contact I can’t see without them. I was going to have to switch over to them soon -- don’t have enough money to buy another box -- but I can lend them to you for now, and we can cast the spell on them. Will the prescription affect you?”

“Let me see them,” Logic frowned, and Virgil pulled his glasses case out of his coat, handing the frames over.

The faerie tried them on, frowning briefly before running his hand over them. The glass shimmered for a moment, and suddenly his eyes only had color in the iris, one a paler green than Virgil’s own, the other a dark blue. “There. And I can see through them fine -- just have to change my own ability to see to do so. Easy shapeshifting spell.”

Virgil smiled despite himself, looking at the different colors. “We’re still eye buddies, huh?”

“I wasn’t about to give that up,” Logic grinned as he rolled his new eyes. It was so much more obvious when he did that, now that he actually had evident whites and pupils _. _ “How do I look?”

Virgil stepped back, passing an appraising glance over his friend. “Very human,” he decided. “Also, very nerdy, so welcome to the weird kid club, L.”

“Excellent,” he said, voice dripping with sarcasm, before his features adjusted into something more serious. “Are you sure you want to do this, Anxiety? For all we know, your Prince isn’t mine at all. I can think of no reason for him to disappear for so long into human society.”

“I can’t risk Morality getting hurt,” Virgil shook his head. “We’re doing this.”

“Alright,” Logic nodded, before his face split into a sly smile. “Now that I look human, though… There are some things you’ve mentioned in Torbrook I’ve always wanted to see.”

Virgil laughed despite himself. “Well, you should probably stay with me tonight, for appearances’ sake anyways… Okay, sure. Let’s go see the library, and then we can stop by my house.”

“How did you know?” the faerie asked, startled, as they started collecting the supplies Virgil had brought.

“Magic,” he grinned, and Logic punched him in the arm without any real force. 

“Ass.”

“Dork.”

Even as they laughed, fear’s cold claws sunk into Virgil’s heart. He swallowed. What if Prince  _ was _ who they thought he was?

What would one of the most powerful fey in the Seelie Court do to the human and the Unseelie that exposed him? 

He glanced over at Logic. The faerie was beautiful when he smiled, even with his teeth disguised to look duller and more human. The sun streamed through the trees, lighting up his dark hair and contrasting the shadows painting fragile pictures across his skin. 

_ What if Prince hurts him? _ the little voice in the back of his mind whispered. 

_ No.  _ He wouldn’t let that happen, Virgil decided, pushing the fear deep, deep down. Not to Logic, or Morality, or Sleep, or anyone he cared about. 

The world was so shitty, as it was. He wasn’t about to let the few people that made living in it bearable suffer.

“Anxiety?”

Logic’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts, and he turned to see the faerie looking at him. “Yeah, L?”

“It’s going to be alright,” he promised, reaching out to hold Virgil’s hand. “Everything’s going to be alright.”

“Okay,” he nodded. And it helped, really, because he knew faeries could only tell the truth, or at least what they believed was the truth. Logic was the smartest person he’d ever met, and if he really believed that… 

Everything would be alright. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come say hi on tumblr!  
> https://www.tumblr.com/blog/awkwardthings6


	3. Sprouts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil and Logan sleep together (but not like that), everyone thinks they're dating, and Prince is confronted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, chapter three. 19 pages long, the bane of my existence, and going from tooth-rotting fluff to mild angst in one chapter.

Logan couldn’t sleep.

He knew he should be able to -- ought to, in fact, have already collapsed from exhaustion a few days ago. He couldn’t quite remember the last time he’d gotten a full night’s sleep at this point. 

But here he was, staring at the ceiling, looking at the peeling paint and wondering if anyone had noticed he wasn’t in the woods yet. 

The odds were slim, of course. Fey, for all their allegiances and deals and petty rivalries, were naturally antisocial creatures. (Or at least Unseelie were. The only two Seelie Logan knew closely, Advice and Prince, were both  _ exhaustingly _ extroverted, but the others of their court did not seem quite as exuberant, and he suspected they might be anomalies.) So no one would likely come looking for Logan tonight, especially after the spring equinox a few days ago. 

Still, he worried.

Sighing, Logan turned on his side, shutting his eyes.  _ What would Advice say right now?  _ h e wondered.  _ What would he tell me? _

...Well, knowing Advice, he’d make repeated human cartoon references and annoy Logan half to death. But mixed in there, he’d say something about Logan repressing his emotions and ignoring his actual worries in favor of trivial ones, and how he had to talk about his problems.

“Okay,” he said out loud, “What am I actually worried about?”

_ Anxiety,  _ his brain supplied.  _ He looks like he’s going to drop any moment. And Prince -- if it really is him, the human, then what on earth is he doing fraternizing with humans? Why did he miss the equinox? Why didn’t he tell his brother? What do I tell Duke if it is him, and he refuses to return? Would I have to keep it a secret?  _

Screw it. 

He pulled aside the quilt, feet hitting the soft carpet on the floor with no sound. Logan could see perfectly in the darkness, now that he had taken off those infernal glasses -- adjusting his eyes to see through them meant depriving himself of his normal vision, which was impeccable in all forms of lighting and conditions. It was  _ annoying.  _

Anxiety had insisted on Logan taking his room, citing some rules of human chivalry, and had gone to sleep on the couch. Logan couldn’t quite understand why he didn’t just take the room at the end of the hall, the one that presumably belonged to his grandmother, but he hadn’t questioned it, instead attempting to convince Anxiety to take the bed by citing his severe exhaustion.

The faerie had forgotten quite how good at  _ arguing _ Anxiety was. 

Logan pulled open the door to the room, adjusting the sweatpants that barely reached his shins. At least the shirt fit well -- it was a band shirt that had always been too big for Anxiety, the human had told him, and although a bit baggy, it was a good length on his lanky frame. 

It was easy, creeping down the stairs, and Logan thought he had been perfectly silent until he heard Anxiety’s voice mutter, “You awake too?”

“Apparently,” he nodded, shrugging before he remembered that human eyes did not see nearly as well in the darkness. “Er… I just shrugged.”

“Thanks,” Anxiety laughed, voice gravelly with exhaustion. “Come sit with me. I’ll make us hot chocolate or something. Eventually.” He was wrapped in blankets, sitting upright on the couch with his purple hair going every which way. Logan noted with some concern that without makeup, the shadows under his eyes were far darker than he had thought. 

“Sugar would probably be inadvisable at this hour,” he frowned, sitting down anyways. “You very much need rest, Anxiety.”

“Hypocrite,” the other mumbled, leaning his head against Logan’s shoulder. His hair smelled of lavender, from the shower he’d taken a few hours earlier. “When did  _ you _ last sleep, L?”

“Last night,” Logan told him, honest as he always was, as he had to be. “My unhealthy sleeping habits do not persist into the summer months -- I only employ them during the time of my court, so I can do everything needed of me.”

“Then why’re you ’wake now?” Anxiety pointed out, words slurring slightly. 

“Stress, I suppose,” he said. “Why are  _ you  _ awake?”

“I’m Panic! At the Disco, ’cept I’m not at the disco,” grinned Anxiety tiredly, eyes shutting. “Get it?”

“You are not falling asleep against me sitting  _ upright _ on the  _ couch _ ,” Logan hissed, flicking his forehead lightly. “It’s awful for your back. And if you were having extreme levels of anxiety, you could have alerted me. I would have been happy to help.”

“You’re warm, though,” the human whined. “Aren’t you supposed to be cold? You’re a winter dude! Let me have the warmth, I’ll use it better than you.”

“My body heat is a biological defense against the conditions I work in, being a ‘winter dude’, as you put it,” he deadpanned. “I believe your exhaustion, mixed with your half-asleep state, has served to deduct from your intelligence and lower your inhibitions.”

“L, listen, I’m far too tired to understand your smart talk, okay?” Anxiety yawned, leaning on him again. “Can we just go to bed? I’ve got school tomorrow.” 

“Yes, as do I. I’m accompanying you, remember?” pointed out Logan, before sighing. “Listen, you’re going to be all sore in the morning if you fall asleep upright on the couch. If you insist on making use of my body heat, I would advise we relocate to your room.”

“Why,  _ Logic, _ ” grinned Anxiety, obviously attempting a sultry look but only managing to look mildly dead, what with the shadows under his eyes and how he was squinting to see Logan at all. “Are you inviting me to bed with you?” 

“Oh, that’s it,” groaned Logan, standing. “Go to sleep, loser. I will see you in the morning” 

“How  _ dare _ you,” Anxiety protested, attempting to stand as well before getting his legs tangled in the blankets and falling face-first onto the rug. “Ow. Get back here, you living heater!”

“C’mon,” he sighed, tugging on Anxiety’s arms to pull him upright. “Grab your blankets, you dumbass. It’s too late for your shenanigans.”

“Shenanigans, he says,” muttered the human as he gathered the blankets and his pillow into his arms. “Cocky bastard. Like you aren’t just as much of an idiot.”

“Sure,” soothed Logan as they made their way up the stairs again. “There is only an infinitesimal gap in our intellect.”

“Don’t be rude,” Anxiety grumbled as he fell into his bed, curling up on one side. “I regret teaching you human slang, I hope you know that.” 

“Oh, I figured,” he grinned, though he knew Anxiety probably couldn’t see it in the darkness, and got under the quilt beside him. “Good night, Anxiety.”

“Night, L,” he heard in muffled response, before the other let out a huff of a laugh. “No homo, right?”

“Oh, very homo,” Logan snorted, rolling his eyes. “Majorly gay.”

“In a platonic way, though,” sighed Anxiety, eyes already shut as he leaned his head on Logan’s arm. 

He nodded, because body language didn’t count as lying, not for fey, and now was  _ really _ not the time to have that discussion with Anxiety. “Ah -- I just nodded,” he made sure to say, in case the other hadn’t felt the motion. 

Turns out Logan hadn’t required it, as the purple-haired male only replied with a tired mumbling, clearly already asleep. He’d really needed the rest, huh?

A few hours later, a shrill sound awakened Logan, and he blinked awake to see Anxiety fumbling with the old clock on the nightstand. It was still dark out. “What time is it?” he asked. 

“2:30,” Anxiety replied, hitting a button before returning it to the bedside table. “Sorry -- that’s my normal alarm, forgot to turn it off. I reset it for six.”

“You’ve been getting up every morning at 2:30 AM?” he frowned, sitting up properly. “Anx-”

“Don’t worry about it, L,” he sighed in reply, pulling the patchwork quilt back up over his shoulders and turning to face Logan. “We’re sleeping, okay? We’re lying here quietly with our eyes closed and not arguing about my shitty sleep schedule while it’s still dark out.”

“We’re going to discuss this tomorrow,” Logan warned him, but his eyes were already shutting. He was tired too, as much as he hated to admit it while berating Anxiety on his sleeping habits. The other clearly knew, as he let out a quiet laugh and said, “Sleep tight, Logic.”

He tried to respond, but he couldn’t tell if any sound escaped his mouth before everything slipped away.

The second time he woke up, Anxiety was already gone, the alarm beeping quietly. He winced, staring at it -- the old thing looked metal, but he hated the sound, and he knew Anxiety, ever cautious, probably wouldn’t allow anything iron-based near Logan. 

He reached over cautiously, gently touching it -- when no burning sensation occured, he found the button to shut the loud clock off. The silence was blissful. 

Walking down the stairs a few minutes later, clothed in the attire Anxiety had given him the day before (which he had found on the dresser, folded neatly, and smelling of the strange clothing-soap that humans used) he found the human sitting at the dining table. He was still in his pajamas, one hand curled into his purple curls as the other scribbled something into a notebook.

“What are you doing?” Logan asked, peering at him through the enchanted glasses, and didn’t miss how Anxiety jumped at his voice. “Are you alright?” 

“I’m fine,” he shrugged, calming slightly. “Just jumpy. Forgot you were here, for a sec.” He glanced down at the notebook, shutting it and standing. “I was writing. Haven’t had much time for it, lately.”

He didn’t reply to that, even though he felt his lips curl into a pensive frown -- he’d decided not to confront Anxiety about these things, not now. If he wanted to talk, he would. At least, Logan hoped he would. 

“I see.”

“If you’re already up and dressed, I should probably get ready too,” the other yawned, moving past Logan towards the stairs. “I’ll be down in a few, okay? How do you feel about eggs?”

“They’re a rather strange shape,” he replied, shrugging. “I do not have particularly strong feelings about them either way, although I do prefer the bird variety to the insect -- they can be far prettier, especially bluebird eggs. They’re a lovely shade of blue.”

“I meant for  _ breakfast _ , L,” Anxiety laughed, leaning over the banister to flick Logan on the forehead. “Go sit. I’ll be down in a few.”

It turned out that sitting quietly at the table was not entirely advisable -- it gave Logan far too much ability to think about how  _ domestic _ this all was, how he had spent the night in the same bed as an incredibly pretty boy he  _ very _ much liked, possibly in more than a platonic way, and how he now had to spend all day with the same person under the guise of being a friend from out of town. Logan wasn’t an idiot, either, so he knew that Anxiety’s friends ( _ especially  _ if one of them was Prince) were probably going to think the two of them were actually romantically involved, something he definitely would not be able to deal with right now. 

_ Prince. _

He had to focus on that issue, foremost. If the friend of Anxiety’s turned out to not be the Seelie, he could enjoy the day and return to the forest at nightfall, free to mull over his feelings for Anxiety in peace. If he  _ was _ the faerie Logan knew… 

Well. That would be a whole other story. 

The walk to Torbrook’s highschool had been peaceful, the two arriving relatively early. “We’ve got to check you in with the office,” Anxiety explained, leading Logan through halls lined with metal lockers. He bit his lip at the sight of them, careful to stay in the middle of the hallway. “I’ll do most of the talking -- do your best to look shy, okay? We don’t want them asking you too many questions.” 

He pushed open the doors to a large office. A woman sitting at a desk waved them through to the room just off of it. “Mr. Poppy wants to see you,” she said. “He’s got your friend’s schedule.”

“Thanks,” Anxiety nodded, pulling them through the doors to the new, smaller room.

“Anxiety!” exclaimed a balding man sitting at the desk, a cheerful smile across his face. “This must be your new friend, then, huh?”

“Yeah. Mr. Poppy, Logic. Logic -- this is our principal.” Anxiety said, shifting uncomfortably. 

“It is nice to meet you,” Logan said, casting his eyes towards the ground and waving shyly. Let it be said that although he could not speak untruths, he had perfected lying through his body language and appearance. He could practically hear the man dismantling him in his head --  _ introvert, nerd, fairly quiet. _

“Nice to meet you too, Logic,” the man replied, his smile never faltering. “So, have you recently moved to Torbrook?”

“I will be staying here for a time, yes,” the faerie nodded, adjusting his sleeves. “I may not be here long, but while I am I hope to attend your school.” 

He had to pick his words carefully, cautious not to lie even as he had to trick this man. It was the kind of challenge he loved, whether he’d admit it or not.

“I see you filled out the necessary paperwork,” nodded Mr. Poppy, glancing through a file on his desk. “I have your schedule here -- you and Anxiety will be having all the same classes, don’t worry about that! -- so just take it, and he can show you around. Your teachers already know you’re coming, so don’t worry about a thing! And just one more thing -- says here you use he/him pronouns. That’s correct, right?”

“Yes, it is,” Logan nodded, rather surprised at how strangely easy the process had been. Wouldn’t human schools have more… restrictive practices for admitting new students? “Thank you.”

“My son is awfully excited to meet you,” Mr. Poppy grinned, holding out his hand for Logan to shake it. “He was ranting all last night about Anxiety bringing his boyfriend to town.”

Logan felt his face flame, and was suddenly very glad for the illusion covering his cheeks as Anxiety spluttered “Sleep said what?! We’re not -- he’s not-”

“We’re not dating,” he said, rescuing both of their dignities and struggling to keep his voice even. “Just childhood friends.”

“Ah,” Mr. Poppy nodded, chuckling. “Well, glad to meet you anyways. Have a good day, you two!”

“You too, Mr. Poppy!” Anxiety squeaked out, pulling them both out of the room, his face a very bright shade of red. “Oh god, that was a nightmare,” he sighed once they were in the hallway with the door shut behind them. “Boyfriend! I can’t believe Sleep -- I’m going to strangle him!”

“That is one of your friends, correct?” Logan asked, reading the schedule Mr. Poppy had handed him. 

“Not anymore,” he grumbled. “C’mon, my friends and Sleep are all in the library right now, so we can go introduce you to them, and then class will start in-” he checked his phone, “-ten minutes.”

He followed Anxiety, who navigated the twisting halls effortlessly. Logan glanced around him, still careful not to get too close to the lockers -- he’d felt the touch of iron once before, as a child, and he still remembered how it had burned. 

The library in town had been larger, but still, Logan didn’t think he’d ever get over the excitement of seeing so many books in one place. Anxiety snickered at him, tugging him towards a table in the back, where a person about Logan’s age was sleeping with his head resting on the table. 

“Sleep,” Anxiety said to the sunglasses-wearing individual, shaking him gently. “Hey, rise and shine.”

“Anx?” mumbled the sleeping human, who lifted his head slightly before dropping it back onto the table. “Leave me to die here, girl, thanks. I’ve accepted this.”

“Logic, this is our resident dumbass,” Anxiety deadpanned, indicating Sleep with his hand. “It’s okay -- as far as we can tell, having no brain cells whatsoever hasn’t been detrimental to his health.”

Sleep rolled his head to look at Logan, before bolting upwards. “Holy shit, Anxiety, where’d you pick up  _ that _ ?” 

“I beg your pardon?” Logan asked, a cold bolt of fear striking his heart. (Had he seen through the illusion? How? What had he done wrong?)

Sleep grabbed Anxiety’s sleeve, tugging him closer, grinning. With Logan’s heightened hearing, he could clearly hear Sleep’s excited whisper:  _ “Listen, if you’re going to be bringing hot boys to school, you tell me!” _

“Oh, for fucks sake,” sighed Anxiety, who must have been as nervous as Logan himself judging from how he relaxed even as his face turned pink. “Logic, Sleep. Sleep, this is my friend Logic, the one I  _ did, in fact _ , tell you was coming.”

“You told me a friend of yours was coming to school -- I didn’t know he was going to be  _ cute! _ You mention that shit to your bestie, Anx!” Sleep cried, apparently not caring if Logan heard him any longer. 

“Mor’s my bestie” Anxiety rolled his eyes, swatting Sleep. “And stop objectifying Logic! Apologize, you asshole.”

Sleep huffed, turning to Logan. “Sorry, hon. I’m Sleep. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna come on to you -- I’m not a homewrecker, and you two are real cute together.”

“Oh for fucks sake, we’re not dating!” Anxiety exclaimed, saving Logan from having to think his way out of that one. “And for that matter, you can’t tell your dad we are, Sleep!”

“It is nice to meet you,” Logan said to the sunglasses-wearing human, finally spotting his chance to speak. “And Anxiety is correct -- we are not courting.”

“Courting? Oh God, he sounds like Prince,” Sleep muttered, before looking around. “Where  _ are _ Prince and Mor, anyways?”

A shrill sound echoed through the school, harsh on Logan’s sensitive hearing, and he winced. “There’s the bell,” Anxiety frowned. “I guess they’re late, then.”

And so it was only in English that Logan saw him, slightly late, skidding into the classroom with a sweet smile and a mumbling about traffic. 

Prince met his eyes, and something flashed deep within them. They no longer held intricate swirls of gold and red -- instead, they were a dark brown, an utterly human color. Still, Logan would recognize him anywhere. 

It was obvious that Prince recognized him too, from how his eyes darted from Logan’s rounded ears to his dulled teeth, his softer features and newly colored eyes. 

Sleep sat in front of him, napping already, and Anxiety sat at the desk besides Logan’s. No one else had seen fit to take notice of Logan after his introduction by the teacher as a new transfer student, and Mx. Cee was preoccupied glaring at Prince, tapping their foot as he handed them a note from the office.

So he allowed himself a wink, simultaneous greeting and warning.

_ I see you _ , it said.  _ I know you.  _

Prince took an empty seat beside Sleep, unable to look at Logan without incurring Mx. Cee’s wrath, and Logan glanced over at Anxiety.

_ Is it him? _ Anxiety mouthed, glancing at their teacher, who was facing the whiteboard as they wrote something.

Logan only nodded. 

“What on  _ earth _ were you thinking?” he exclaimed, pacing in the empty classroom. Prince stood before him, Anxiety sitting on the teacher’s desk and watching both of them with wide eyes. “Do you have any idea how worried we were? Your brother has been frantic, and the Courts are on the verge of civil war because you’ve been gone! The Wolves have been using your absence to advocate for war, Prince. Deceit has been just barely able to talk them down while Talyn and Joan try to soothe the other fey.”

“Oh, you do not get to be all high and mighty now! I thought you hated the Wolves,” Prince snarled, glaring behind Logan. “Let Anxiety go! I can’t tell what magic you’re using on him, but it’s strong enough that you must have found out his true name. You know control is wrong, Logic!”

“You think I’m controlling Anxiety?” Logan asked, momentarily startled into stopping besides where said human sat, staring at Prince. “...Have you  _ met _ him? He’s unbelievably stubborn. I doubt I could even if I wanted to!”

“Oh, shut up,” Anxiety grumbled, his eyes remaining on Prince and his knuckles turning white where his hands clenched the edge of the desk. “You know you love me.”

“See, it’s comments like that that make everyone think we’re together,” Logan rolled his eyes. “That is just as much your fault as mine, you… What was it? It was one of the flashcards. Something about a facet of human culture that you identify as?”

“Emo?” suggested the human, and Logan nodded.

“Ah, yes. You emo… disaster! Can disaster be used in that context? Okay, it’s not that funny, stop laughing.” 

He didn’t even mind Anxiety’s snickering, really. If Logan’s poor memory for human slang made his friend laugh instead of panicking over Prince, he would utilize that. Even if it was rather demeaning. 

“Wait, if you’re not controlling him, how did you convince him to help you?” Prince frowned, staring between them. “Anxiety’s not exactly the friendliest of people.”

“He can also  _ hear you, _ asshole, and would like it if you didn’t talk about me like I’m not here,” retorted the purple-haired male, amusement forgotten as he glared at Prince. “Is that how you made us be friends with you, despite me being so  _ unfriendly _ ? Were you ‘controlling’ us? Does Mor even like you?”

“ _ Of course not! _ ” Prince exclaimed, looking so aghast that even Anxiety looked remorseful. “I would never stoop to such means, Anxiety! Not with you, or Sleep, and  _ especially  _ not with Morality. I… I could never hurt Mor in any way, nor have I, nor will I, ever. I swear it, both on my true name and my honor as a faerie.”

Logan and Anxiety exchanged looks. Prince couldn’t lie, like all fey, and such a specific statement left no grounds for doubt. The human, at least, seemed temporarily reassured, although he kept his eyes on Prince. 

“What are you doing in Torbrook?” he finally asked after a beat of silence, removing his glasses with a sigh and leaning back against the absent instructor’s desk. Prince looked up at him sharply, about to speak, but Logan beat him to the punch, explaining “This room has been warded. All of us currently have break periods, and Anxiety has informed me this room is unused during this time, so I have ensured no one will enter, hear anything from it, or see inside. There is little need for extra caution.”

“You charmed glasses?” Prince asked instead, touching his fingers to his eyes and removing his contacts, his eyes reverting to the deep red and golds Logan knew. Anxiety’s jaw dropped, but both of the fey were kind enough not to mention it. “That’s clever, Microsoft Nerd. How’d you get them?”

_ Microsoft?  _ he wondered, resolving to ask Anxiety about it afterwards. “They are Anxiety’s,” he said. “My clothes, as well. You’re deflecting the question, though -- why are you here? Is it because of your affection for this Morality, or… something else?”

Prince deflated, fidgeting with the sleeves of his crisp white jacket. “Joan and Talyn ordered me here,” he told them quietly, and Logan’s eyes widened. “It was to be a secret from all, including my family and friends. We could not risk mentions of my mission reaching the Wolves.”

“I feel like I’m missing something,” Anxiety said, leaning forwards from his perch. “Who are the Wolves?”

“They are a group of fey who have grown in power as of late,” Logan explained, not taking his eyes off Prince. “They are notorious for advocating for violence and cruelty against humans, including raiding Torbrook to crib-snatch, despite Joan and Talyn having outlawed such barbaric practices hundreds of years ago. We… We met one of their number, years ago. Remember Lady Belladonna?”

He knew Anxiety did -- for years, despite acting unaffected by the events of that day, the human had had nightmares of his near-kidnapping. He had told Logan one night when they were thirteen, lying together in their field and staring up at the stars, a picnic blanket beneath them. 

_ “I don’t want to sleep,” Anxiety confessed, his body warm against Logan’s own, the cool air ruffling their hair. _

_ “Why?” Logan asked, turning his head from the stars above to look at his friend. “I was under the impression humans require sleep like fey do, as something necessary to function properly. Is something the matter? Is it being out here? You can return to your home if you wish, Anxiety, I would not hold it against you.” _

_ “No, no, I like being outside!” he protested, rolling onto his side to face the Unseelie, their eyes meeting in the darkness. “I usually sleep fine. It’s just that… Last night, I had a really bad dream.” _

_ “Do you wish to speak about it?” inquired the faerie. “It is of course alright if you do not, but Advice is always telling me to speak about my problems or nightmares.” He let out a huff. “It does help, but still -- he is only older than me by four months, he is hardly allowed to act grown-up when we are the same age.”  _

_ Anxiety laughed quietly at that, but his smile fell as he opened his mouth to speak again. “Do you remember that time when… When I met Deceit? When the faeries tried to take me?” _

_ Logan tensed at that, but he nodded. “Of course,” he said. How could he forget? The thought of it had kept him up for many a night, irrationally… well,  _ anxious _ , at the idea.  _

_ “I sometimes have nightmares about it. About what could have happened,” Anxiety admitted, curling up on himself involuntarily. “If you hadn’t gotten there on time, if you had and they had hurt you, if you had died or something because of me-” _

_ “But I did get there on time, and they were not able to injure me,” Logan told him, reaching out to hold Anxiety’s hand. “You’re my friend. I will not allow you to be harmed if there is any way I can stop it.” _

_ “Aw, you sap,” Anxiety grinned. “You love me.” _

_ “Of course,” Logan rolled his eyes. “My summers would be quite boring without you, and probably my winters as well.” _

_ “Have you seen her since then?” the human boy asked after a beat, and with Logan’s night vision he could see a tear roll down Anxiety’s cheek. Judging from how quickly it was wiped away, his friend did not want it seen or mentioned -- Logan obliged him in the latter. “The woman, the one who wanted to… to hurt me?” _

_ “Yes,” Logan nodded. Lady Belladonna. He would not speak her name aloud inside the forest, especially in the dark -- names had power, even for Unseelie, even in summer. “She is… politically active, is how I believe you would define it, in our Courts. Not successful, usually -- the rulers of both Seelie and Unseelie fey do not support her ideals.” _

_ “Does she remember me?”  _

_ “No. As far as any of the three of them know, she cast a spell which backfired on all three of them. She hates to remember it or have it mentioned -- apparently, it was quite embarrassing.” He snickered at the thought. “I can’t tell whether she’d be more mortified by that or the truth: that a faerie no older than ten managed to catch her off guard, attack her, change her memories, and frame her for the whole thing.” _

_ “She’s never going to find out, though, L,” said Anxiety, frowning. “Right?” _

_ “I promise,” he nodded, and the moon came out from behind a cloud, making the human’s eyes shine. “I told you I’d always protect you, remember?” _

_ “And I’ll do the same for you, Logic,” smiled the other.  _

_ A cold breeze rustled through the trees as Logan asked “How are you supposed to do that? You’re human, remember?” _

_ “Listen, just because I’m human doesn’t mean I’m  _ weak _ or something,” retorted Anxiety, flicking him on the forehead with his free hand. “Don’t be rude.” _

_ “Sure you aren’t,” Logan smirked, baring his sharp teeth, and Anxiety flicked him again, harder this time. “Ow! Weren’t you telling me about your human constellations?” _

_ “You deserved it,” he grumbled, but his eyes returned to the stars, tracing his finger between them. “You see that one there? If you make kind of an X, with one of the sides short -- that’s Cygnus, the swan.” _

_ Logan fell asleep that night to Anxiety’s voice telling him stories of the stars, and when the sun awoke him the next morning the human was asleep too, leaves in his hair and his hand in Logan’s own. _

“Wait, how long have you two known each other?” Prince asked, looking between the two of them and snapping Logan out of his memories with the question. “What do you mean you met Belladonna  _ years _ ago?”

“That’s not super important right now, Princey,” Anxiety rolled his eyes. “Can we focus on the actual issues at hand?”

Prince glared at him, turning to Logan with his arms crossed. “Logic, tell me now, or I won’t tell you anything else.”

“...Anxiety and I have been interacting for the better part of seven years,” he confessed after a beat, ignoring Prince’s offended gasp and Anxiety’s facepalm. “But I have never allowed it to divert me from my duties, and I have only traveled to Torbrook now, after hearing about you from him.”

“You  _ hypocrite _ ,” the Seelie exclaimed, clearly offended. Logan sighed. They did not have time for this. “Seven years? Alright, get off your high horse Mr. ‘Oh, Prince, Why Would You Ever Go Interact With The Humans? It’s So Dangerous!’ Seven  _ years _ !”

“Can we get back to the matter at hand?” he asked, but Prince wasn’t done yet. 

“Does anyone else know?” 

“Deceit, as he was there when Belladonna attempted to take Anxiety, but I erased his memories-”

“ _ Deceit?! _ ” Prince cried, hand to his heart as he cut off Logan. “Before  _ me _ ? Logic, how could you?”

“I just explained his memories were erased-”

“Me, the greatest of your friends-”

“You never have been, and never will be, the greatest of my friends.”

“-not told about your secret boyfriend! How  _ could  _ you?”

“Anxiety and I are not  _ courting,  _ Prince, we have established this repeatedly!”

“And then you have the gall to tell me I’m irresponsible for going off and getting a boyfriend!”

“We thought you were dead,” Logan snapped, and Prince’s rant came to a halt at that. “No, actually, we didn’t know what to think, because you were  _ gone _ and hadn’t told Duke, or Advice, or Deceit, or me where you were going, you hadn’t told anyone, and Joan and Talyn had clearly been trying to keep the little fact that you were missing under wraps. We’re nearly in at war because of you, Prince, so yes, I’m going to be a bit mad that while we were preventing Duke from tearing apart the realm and navigating unrest from the Wolves, Seelie, and Unseelie, you were off kissing a human and having a grand old time!”

“Logic-” Prince began, subdued, but Logan wasn’t done, and he was sick and tired of being interrupted. 

“Yes, I have known Anxiety for seven years. I never let it divert me from my work, I never up and disappeared because of it, and I _never_ risked coming into Torbrook for it. I only did that when I heard you might be here, because again, we thought you were _dead_!” He felt a hand (belonging to the purple-haired male, no doubt) on his back, tapping a gentle beat into the skin, and he recognized it in the back of his mind -- _4, 7, 8,_ a technique Anxiety had taught him many years ago, and the same one he had led the human through just a few days past. He calmed, continuing after a beat, “I understand that Talyn and Joan sent you here for a reason, based on your earlier statement. I apologize for snapping at you -- it is not as if you could defy them, after all.”

“I… I’m so sorry, Lo,” Prince said, crestfallen. “I had no idea, I thought -- I assumed they would figure out a way to hide or mask my absence. My quest was so sudden, I had no time to ensure they did.”

“It’s alright,” Logan told him with a sigh, and at the skeptical look on both the Seelie and human’s faces, he rolled his eyes. “Truly, it is. But I would like to know what was so vital that you had to come to the home of the humans to do it.”

“There is something strange going on in this town,” Prince began, rolling his eyes at Anxiety’s mutter of  _ “No shit, Sherlock.” _ “Not just your sleep schedule, Michael Mell-ancholy.”

“Be more chill, Princey, getting worked up doesn’t suit you,” Anxiety smirked, and Logan sighed.

“What do you mean by strange?” he asked, reaching over to where Anxiety sat beside him and lightly swatting his friend on the leg. 

“Do you ever think about how fey have never tried to go anywhere other than Torbrook?” Prince leaned forwards, an unusual seriousness transforming his features. “It’s weird, isn’t it? We never try to make our way into other locales, even though this town knows how to defend against us by now. Even the Wolves don’t try to get further into the human world. Why do we all stay here?”

“The only portal is to the forest here,” Logan responded, but even as he said it, he frowned. There had to be other entrances to the human world -- not all stories of his kind had originated from Torbrook, after all. But then… “What happened to all the others?”

“See, that’s what I asked, too,” Prince nodded. “Turns out, no one knows. Talyn and Joan have been searching for the other entrances to Earth for  _ centuries, _ but the only active one they’ve ever been able to find is here. They asked Deceit and I to check the records a few years ago, and that’s where it gets even weirder -- all the other doorways vanished at the same time this one became notedly popular for fey to travel though. Torbrook is the last portal from our realm to this one, and no one knows why, or how.”

Logan stared at him, eyes wide. “And we’ve never tried to get past this place,” he said slowly. “We’ve never tried to leave, to see the world. We’ve just… accepted being in this place.”

It went against faerie nature, this idea of stability, of constants. Fey were tricksters, and travellers -- and now that Logan thought about it, in the old stories, they were  _ loners,  _ just like he would normally classify himself to be. 

And now they clustered together in a forest, content to lurk in a single place, barely leaving the trees because they feared the iron, being caught, being hunted. They feared  _ humans _ . 

“What has been done to us?” Logan asked quietly, nails digging into his palms. 

“We thought… We thought originally it was the humans’ fault,” Prince said, equally low, with a guilty glance at Anxiety, who seemed to have caught on to the truth, judging by the look on his face.  _ He’s always liked stories, especially of fey, _ Logan thought. It would make sense, him putting the pieces together. “But then we recalled that humans can’t seem to leave Torbrook either, not permanently, and how distressed that seems to make them. How, as much as they hate it here, they all remain.”

Anxiety and Logan exchanged looks, both remembering their conversation of a few days ago, and Anxiety’s own anguish at his inability to leave Torbrook.

“We can’t, no,” Anxiety shook his head, sliding down from his perch on the desk to stand beside Logan. “Are you saying we’re  _ all  _ trapped in this hellhole?”

“It certainly looks that way,” Prince nodded. “That’s why I’m here. Talyn and Joan want me to figure out why. But I… Well, clearly, I haven’t had much luck.” He stared at the table before him, tapping his painted nails on the wood nervously.

Logan and Anxiety had been able to have silent conversations since they were children. Perhaps it was being friends for so long or truly something more, but as they exchanged looks, Logan knew exactly what the other was thinking. He agreed, of course. 

“We’re going to help you,” Anxiety said, for the both of them. 

“You are?” Prince asked, surprise flashing through his eyes. Logan held back a frown at that -- it made the other faerie seem vulnerable, as if he’d been expecting both of his friends (at least, Logan liked to think he was Prince’s friend, and he could tell Anxiety certainly was) to abandon him, despite his clear distress. 

“Of course,” Logan replied. “I believe we are… buddies, as you might say, and you appear to need aid. It is a rather momentous task, especially since the humans have spent years unable to deduce their own inability to leave Torbrook, and we would be happy to help. Although, you will have to inform your brother and the Courts that you are alright, sooner rather than later, to maintain my cooperation.”

“Are we still friends?” He was looking not at Logan, but at Anxiety, bearing an almost desperate expression, and the human’s face softened.

“I hope so,” Anxiety said. “I’m sorry I accused you of controlling Morality and Sleep and I. Even I should have realized that was unfair, especially since I was able to question it in the first place. Besides…” He laughed. “I see how much Mor likes you, and I doubt magic could fake that. I can’t see you using that to make him gush about you in private, either -- that would be incredibly self-centered, even for you.”

“He talks to you about me?” asked Prince, with such a lovestruck look that Logan had to resist the urge to gag. “What does he say?”

“Not the point,” Anxiety rolled his eyes. “Ew, get that look off your face.”

“Ah, yes. Er…” The other had enough grace to be flustered, clearing his throat as he returned his contacts to his eyes, the magic shimmering as the spell on the small items spread to mask their color entirely. “It’s alright, Anxiety. Your fear was not unfounded, after all, given my true nature, and I would not have reacted well in your place. No apology necessary.”

“I still was a dick though,” said Anxiety, before he checked his watch and straightened abruptly. “It’s almost time for theatre,” he gasped. “I promised Mariposa I’d be there early to make sure we’ve got all the props set up before we start. Princey, can you show Logic the way? We’ve got shared schedules, and I can put him to work painting sets or something.”

“Sure,” the Seelie nodded, waving as Anxiety sprinted out of the room, before turning to Logan with a grin. “So. You and Anx?”

“What are you implying?” he asked, eyes narrowing as he put his glasses back on. “I have told you repeatedly we are not in a romantic relationship.”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t  _ want _ to be, though,” Prince reminded him, resting his cheeks on his fists with an infuriating smile. “Does Tall, Dark, and Serious have a crush on his little human friend?”

“Don’t be a fool,” Logan snapped, moving towards the door. “Come, we must get to class.”

He’d forgotten just how  _ quick _ Prince was -- the smaller faerie moved to block his path, looking up at Logan. “Just say it,” the faerie whispered gleefully. “Just say, ‘I don’t have a crush on Anxiety,’ and I’ll let you be, Logic.”

Well,  _ shit. _

Logan’s silence was all the answer Prince needed, the Seelie letting out a gleeful cheer. “Aw!” he squealed. “I told Anxiety he’d find himself a Romeo, but I didn’t expect him to be so true to the tale!”

“I certainly hope I’m not Romeo,” he sighed. “He was far older than Juliet, firstly, and their story also ended with a double suicide.”

That response only seemed to make Prince more amused, as he was still saying something about him and Anxiety apparently being perfect for each other when Logan grabbed him by the ear and pulled him out of the classroom, dissipating the wards with a wave of his hand. “Ow!”

“You are going to tell me where we are supposed to be headed to,” Logan told him, crouching slightly so he and the short faerie were at eye level in the empty hallways. “And then you will not say a word to Anxiety.”

“But I could set you up or something!” Prince protested, hands on his hips. “C’mon, Lo, you’d be so  _ cute  _ together!”

“He has enough on his plate without dealing with me,” Logan shook his head. “Besides, not only am I quite certain he is not interested in me romantically, he also is hoping to go off to college by next year, provided that he has enough money saved for both himself and his grandmother, and can acquire a scholarship. If we cannot solve this issue before then, I do not want to endanger his dreams.”

“...Why is he saving for his grandmother?” asked Prince with a frown, playful nature lost. “I knew he was saving for college, but she has a job that’s supported them both for years. Mor told me she’s an artist of some sort, and it apparently sells quite well.”

Logan stared at him. “You don’t know?” he said, ice filling his veins.

“Know what? Is Robin okay? I’ve only met her a few times, but she’s absolutely lovely. I haven’t seen her since December, of course, because that’s when Anxiety started his job and we stopped picking him up…” His words trailed off, his eyes full of concern and worry.

_ Fuck, _ Logan thought.  _ Fuck, fuck, FUCK.  _

Clearly, Anxiety hadn’t told his friends about his grandmother’s sickness, or her indefinite stay in the hospital. It wasn’t Logan’s secret to share, he knew that, and though he and Anxiety would have words about this (He had thought Anxiety would tell his friends, of course he had! But if he hadn’t… Had he told anyone? How long had he been dealing with all of this completely alone?) he wasn’t about to spill the human’s secrets to Prince. 

“He’s been worried about her ability to care for herself as of late,” he said, choosing his words _very_ carefully. “She is fine,” (hadn’t Anxiety told him recently she was doing well and past the danger threshold, only being held in the elderly hospital for ease of treatment?) “but he gets quite anxious, you know how he is.” 

“Oh.” The Seelie relaxed, his concern now seemingly directed at Logan and _oh no, ew, feelings-_

“I hardly think you’d be endangering his dreams,” Prince told him, offering Logan a comforting pat on the upper arm, probably because he couldn’t comfortably reach the Unseelie’s shoulder. “He might as well be the posterboy for a gay disaster, he could use a boyfriend for support in these trying times!”

The bell rang, and students began to flood the halls. Logan sighed. “I hardly think that would help his stress,” he said. “Now, show me to this classroom, and do not breathe a  _ word  _ of this to Anxiety, or anyone else.”

“Okay,” Prince smirked, leading Logan through the halls. 

“ _ Swear it, _ ” Logan growled. 

“Oh, fine,” the Seelie rolled his eyes. “I won’t tell anyone about that conversation we just had, none of it at all. I  _ swear it.  _ Even though I  _ will  _ be trying to set up you two, because honestly you guys will be the cutest thing this town has seen since Morality and I!”

“Don’t you dare!” he hissed, glaring at Prince, who simply laughed in response.

Deep in his mind, Logan let out a sigh of relief. He had been truly worried about Prince -- finding him was truly a relief, even if the news that accompanied it wasn’t. 

For a moment, his thoughts darted away from his cautious grasp, pushing forwards wayward dreams. What if he could leave these woods, and Torbrook itself? Could he visit Anxiety, when he was off at college? Would he be able to join the human, if he decided to leave Torbrook altogether? 

Could they have something together?

That was when he grabbed the reins again, steering his mind away from that particular train of thought. It was foolish to consider such things now, especially since Anxiety was a  _ human.  _ He would long outlive the other, as a faerie, and he knew such a thing would kill him if he allowed himself to get too close. Imagining a life with Anxiety, idyllic as it was, also came with imagining his death, and the millenia Logan would face without him. 

It was better if he didn’t consider it at all, really. 

So he followed Prince through the halls, shoving thoughts of his friend out of his mind -- for Logan did not love him. He couldn’t.

They would not be Romeo and Juliet, not now, not ever.

That was how the story would have to be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who might be interested in updates on the progress of the story, despite me having a VERY inconsistent schedule: my tumblr should be linked below! The #bluebells tag has some of my mentions of the story, and if people ask questions about it on there I’m happy to answer!

**Author's Note:**

> Check me out on Tumblr!
> 
> https://awkwardthings6.tumblr.com/


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